- Plan your daily diet. Breakfast is a must, especially during the cold weather. Not coffee with a croissant, but a full-fledged morning meal that will energize you at least till the lunch time. The best choice is oatmeal with nuts or dried fruit. Soups are also a must: they will warm up your tummy and ensure proper digestion. Having healthy fats in your diet is also very important. Sea fish and shellfish are the main sources for them. They are both the vitamins and protectors from stress. A late dinner is allowed, yet it shall be some low-calorie meal and eaten at least three hours before bedtime and two hours after the workout.
2. Be patient. Be set to observing slightly more people in the gym than usual: gym attendance increases in autumn and spring. Be also set that getting used to training load may take up to three months, and you might not observe big results during this time. But the good news is that in autumn fitness centres offer many new programs, and this is the best and safest time of the year to get into desired shape.
3. Alternate your training routine by days. Beginners will be all right with three workouts per week to start with, until they reach the basic fitness level. Then their number can be increased to five or six. However, both beginners and more experienced athletes need to alternate between strength training and cardio by days. This is the only way to burn fat and build muscles. For example, Mondays, Wednesday and Friday will be your strength training days, while Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday will be your cardio days.
Expert opinion
Valeria Ivashchenko, fitness director at BodyArt fitness
The best option for the autumn-winter period is to maintain your shape and flow into your routine as soon as you are inside the fitness center. Dynamic weight loss is better to put off till spring time: our body’s biorhythms are such that with the awakening of the nature metabolic processes speed up, and those extra pounds melt away much easier. Yet if a person wants to get slimmer, he or she will do it at any time of the year without no excuses. The year-round formula: more physical activities and less high-calorie foods. To keep yourself motivated, BodyArt fitness recommends to ask yourself these questions more often: how many times I’ve exercised for the past week? Will I regret if I skip a workout? Do I have a good reason for that? How do I compensate for the skipped session? I have no doubts that sticking to simple rules and self-discipline will not allow you feeling unhappy about your body when the time comes to jump out from warm, chunky clothes into light spring outfits.
Source: L’Officiel.