Don't Set Your Progress Back With The Clocks

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A 3 min read

You’ve set your clocks back, please don’t set your progress back.

With the time change and Halloween on the same weekend, we have moved into the most challenging time of the year where weight loss is concerned for many; colder, shorter days and the season of many holidays and special events; let’s focus today on the time change.
During the long, sunny days of summer we are more energized and think nothing of heading out for a walk after dinner or even late in the evening. We feel ‘light’ and positive and motivated by the beautiful weather to get outside, eat well and work hard towards our goals. Perhaps we have a snack we plan for late in the evening but it’s relatively easy for us to control grazing and nibbling because we are so active and busy.

With the clocks going back it feels like the evening starts in the afternoon all of a sudden and we often feel a hard shift in our mood, our desire to be active and we are faced with many dark, colder hours that the couch and countless snacks have always seemed to be the answer to.

It’s time then to adapt and plan, perhaps altering the timing of some of your food you plan for your day and figuring out how not to have your NEAT shut off at 5pm.

Here are a few strategies to put into play:

• Delay the timing of your first meal of the day giving you more food available for the later hours
  
• If you already program an evening snack or bedtime food, add another ‘snack’ (and remember, a snack can be anything, it does not have to be your classic idea of a snack, think out of the box and get creative!)
  
• Push back dinnertime by an hour
  
• Do the yoga or strength training you’ve been thinking about adding into your life as it starts to get dark rather than grazing in the kitchen
  
• Give yourself a cutoff time for activity (yes, plan the time it’s ‘ok’ to crash on the couch!) and keep moving in some way until this time.  Do the dreaded laundry, play with your kids, walk your dog up and down your driveway, prep food for tomorrow; as long as you’re standing and moving you are golden

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Change is hard, but change we must if we want to evolve. Move through this darker season a little differently this year and perhaps feel a bit lighter because of it.
Thx 
Patti