It’s almost the weekend. Which means it’s time to let your hair down, right? Right! Well, to a certain extent anyway. You know I’m a huge advocate of balance, but that doesn’t mean that now is the time to go out and attempt to break the world record for most damage you can do to your body in a single 48 hour period.
Here are five tips to ensure that have yourself a happy and healthy weekend.
1. Eat Regularly (and Well!)
Your poor body. Monday to Friday you’re so good to it – healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner plus snacks. But come the weekend and it’s a different story! When your body doesn’t know when or where it’s next meal is coming from, it’s liable to do something drastic, like hold onto whatever calories you’re feeding it. This is particularly undesirable if your first meal of the day is bacon, eggs, toast, sausages, hash browns and juice at 12pm. Try to keep some semblance of balance Friday through Monday too.
2. Keep Moving
You worked hard in the gym all week, and that’s great. But it doesn’t mean you should take a reclined position on the lounge and not move from there until Monday morning. Use the weekend to get out and enjoy the things you don’t have time for Monday to Friday – take a long coastal walk, play a team sport or head to the park with your dog (or if you don’t have a dog, just hang about at the dog park pretending you do). Move your body without the stress of a structured workout.
3. Avoid Late Night Food Parties
Despite what they told you when you were living on campus at uni, eating is NOT cheating – In fact, I wholeheartedly recommend a meal to go with that wine you’re drinking. But that kebab, packet of chips, half a loaf of bread and the remainder of your Easter eggs you ate between midnight and 4am? Not a great idea and definitely not the way to ensure a healthy weekend. While your body is processing alcohol it’s actually unable to burn through the calories you’re consuming. So keep that in mind before you ask your cabbie to head through the Macca’s drive-through on the way home.
4. Sleep
Sleep oh glorious sleep. This is when your body does all it’s best work (read more about it here)! Staying out ’til 4am seems like a good idea at the time, but – if you’re over 25 anyway – you’ll be paying for that decision all next week. Mental fuzziness, a tired body and no desire to hit the gym…. is it really worth it? Nothing good tends to happen after midnight anyway. 2am at the latest…
5. Ditch the Binge Drinking
So this one seems obvious, right? Too much alcohol = empty calories, bad decisions and a whopping great headache the next day. Not to mention sustained binge drinking can do some pretty horrendous damage to your health. A couple of drinks is great – even necessary some weeks – but four champagnes, seven vodkas, and three unidentifiable shots? Probably not your best decision. Now I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’ve never done it, but try not to make a habit of it, yeah?
Have a healthy weekend Team, and share your tips for a happy and healthy weekend in the comments section below!
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