By Meghan Belnap
If you fight the hard battle during the week, staying late at the office, dropping kids off at ballet practice and piano, plus taking care of the house and bills, you may not have time to exercise until the weekend.
If you find that work, personal commitments and preparation for the following week is the makeup of your life Monday through Friday, you may turn to the “weekend warrior” lifestyle on the weekends: working out vigorously to make up for the lost time during the week. This is a lifestyle choice for many people, but it comes with some special stipulations. So be smart, and read on to find surefire health advice for you, the weekend warriors!
1. Beware of Injury
As a weekend warrior, you may have to be more careful about injury, says Jeffrey Spang, MD at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Your body is not used to exercising during the week, so that blast of physical movement needs to be done carefully. Always take time to stretch before and after a workout, and ease into intense cardio or strength training.
If you do end up injured, it’s important to know what your options are. Physical therapy is good, but usually it takes going to see a doctor before you know if you need physical therapy. Going to see an orthopedist for your knee problems, or a podiatrist from Dalhousie Station Foot Clinic for your foot problems, will help you a lot as you work to get back from injury.
2. Backup Your Plan With Healthy Eating
Being a weekend warrior is not ideal to staying healthy (working out consistently 3-5 times a week throughout the week is), but it is a far better plan than never working out at all. So if you adopt this lifestyle, make sure to catch any slack with a healthy eating plan. Stick to whole grains and lean meats as opposed to starchy white breads and pastas and red meat like beef. Finally, don’t forget those veggies and fruits (6-8 servings per day)!
3. Look For Ways to Incorporate Exercise on Weekdays
So you don’t have time to hit the gym Monday through Friday, and you won’t be running trails or doing a strength training session either. That’s OK. There are tons of other ways to incorporate exercise in the “cracks” of your weekdays. Try parking further away in the parking lot at work. Walk to your mail box instead of swinging by in your car on the way home. You can even use a yoga ball at your desk instead of a desk chair.
4. Space out Meals
As a weekend warrior, you won’t have exercise to consistently kick your metabolism into gear, so you should plan accordingly by eating smaller meals. Large and heavy meals at widely spaced intervals throughout your day (the classic 3 meals a day plan) could make you feel extra sluggish. Instead, go for 5 to 6 smaller meals each day to keep an active metabolism, and you’ll notice the difference.