Stay fit in 2021

Your health and wellbeing is as important as the health of your business - don’t neglect it.

What a year 2020 has been!!

Hello to 2021 and the light at the end of the tunnel! Many of us have been affected by this pandemic with individual’s health, wellbeing, fitness, and waistlines being hit hard! Running a business at the best of times is all encompassing and far too often it is the business owner who’s health maintenance slides down the priority list.

It is often this time of year when we have a little more time to breath, refocus and think about a restructure of priorities for the year ahead. That is until the Wednesday morning of the first week back and already the workload takes over!!

This year think differently! Create a plan that will fit into your weekly schedule with minimal interference. Training 90 minutes everyday and prepping 7 meals a day is highly unlikely to last!! Exercising 4 times a week for 30 minutes from home plus understanding how a few tweaks to food and food prep go a long way – now that is more like it!!!

Starting the year with a few home truths and benchmarks is a good idea - bodyweight, bodyfat, waist to hip, waist to height and BMI are great. All these can be calculated with a soft tape measure & scale. Although these can be disheartening at the beginning, after 3 months looking back is often extremely rewarding!! Xerlife talks you through these and creates a personal dashboard to store this information.

To create a plan, work out which days/times are best for you, whereby you will get least interruptions and most satisfaction. Put it on the calendar, in the diary, pencil it out – see exercise as part of your health insurance, your daily escape!! From here, think about how much time you can commit. The NHS guidelines are currently 75 minutes of vigorous or 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week.

- If convenience is key and time is short, train at home – use our Xerlife videos.

- If the outdoors is the perfect escape for you – get outdoors and move.

- If it’s a gym – make sure it is close to home or work.

- If it’s a group session – find ones that go online should we lockdown again.

Do think about the style of training – if you spend all day wrapped round a laptop at the kitchen table, something to reverse this, not compound it would be very beneficial.

The real key to success is creating a healthy plan that is sustainable, realistic, and enjoyable. This is for exercise and food. Too often I witness people cut everything out, exercise like crazy until the first race meet at the end of January and then go wild. Half the weight is back on by Valentines and so the cycle begins again!

The Business Owner Magazine offers a big thanks to Paul Wanford of Xerlife for his expert health tips