Don’t Let the Weather Knock Your Fitness Routine Off Track

We all love summer when the sun is out. The days are longer, it’s warm outside, you naturally want to get out of the house more and, for a lot of people, staying active just seems to happen a little more easily. You might walk more, spend weekends outside, train more regularly and generally feel like you’ve got a bit more energy.

But as we all know, a British summer doesn’t always quite work like that.

You can have a brilliant week of sunshine followed by a week of rain, grey skies and cooler temperatures, and it’s surprising how quickly that change can affect your routine. The plans to go for a walk after work disappear because it’s raining, you don’t fancy leaving the house to train and a weekend that would normally involve plenty of time outside suddenly becomes a much less active one.

Nutrition can start to change a little too. When it’s sunny and warm, lighter meals, fruit and plenty of water often feel like the obvious choice, but when you get a few wet and miserable days, it’s easy to start reaching for more convenient food or having a few more treats because it suddenly feels like a cosy weekend at home rather than the middle of summer.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with any of that, and a rainy weekend isn’t going to undo your progress. The issue comes when a change in the weather starts dictating your routine for a couple of weeks and you gradually find yourself doing less and less.

Don’t Let the Weather Make the Decision for You

One of the best things you can do is try to separate your training routine from what the weather happens to be doing that day.

If you’ve planned to train Tuesday evening, try to make Tuesday evening your training time whether it’s 25 degrees and sunny or pouring with rain. Once you’re actually inside the gym and getting started, the weather outside becomes pretty irrelevant.

It sounds simple, but having those sessions planned beforehand makes a massive difference because you’re not making the decision at 5:30pm when it’s raining and the sofa suddenly looks much more appealing.

You don’t need to feel motivated every time you train. In fact, some of the sessions you’ll feel best about afterwards are the ones you really couldn’t be bothered doing beforehand.

Keep Some Structure to Your Week

Summer can be a strange time for routines anyway. There are holidays, weekends away, kids being off school, BBQs, social events and plenty of other things going on, so adding a few days of rubbish weather into the mix can make your normal routine feel even less structured.

Rather than expecting every week to be perfect, have a few things that you try to keep consistent.

That could simply be aiming for three training sessions each week, getting out for a walk every day even if it’s only a short one, and keeping some structure around your meals. If you normally do more than that, brilliant, but having a basic minimum gives you something to fall back on when the week gets a bit messy.

A 20-minute walk in the rain might not sound quite as appealing as a long summer evening walk in the sunshine, but you’ll probably still feel better for doing it. Stick a coat on, get outside and get it done. Not every bit of exercise has to be an amazing experience for it to be worthwhile.

Your Nutrition Doesn’t Need to Change Completely Either

It’s normal for what you fancy eating to change with the weather. If it’s cooler outside, you might not fancy exactly the same meals you were having during a hot week, and that’s completely fine.

Good nutrition isn’t about eating the same foods every day. You can swap the salads for a chilli, curry, jacket potato, stir fry or something a little warmer and still have a really good meal. The basics don’t need to change much: get a decent source of protein in there, add some fruit or vegetables, make sure you’re eating enough to support your activity and keep an eye on the little extras that can creep in when you’re spending more time at home.

It’s also worth remembering your water intake. When it’s really hot, drinking plenty feels obvious because you’re thirsty all the time. When the temperature drops for a few days, it’s surprisingly easy to forget, despite your body still needing plenty of fluids, especially if you’re training.

As with training, keeping nutrition consistent becomes much easier when you take some of the decision-making out of it. Have a few simple meals you know you enjoy, keep the ingredients in the house and don’t put pressure on yourself to cook something amazing every night. Often the most sustainable nutrition habits are the boringly simple ones.

Don’t Write the Week Off

This is probably where people get caught out most.

You have plans for an active weekend, it rains constantly, you end up doing very little and maybe eat and drink a bit more than you normally would. By Sunday evening you feel like you’ve had a “bad weekend”, so Monday becomes the day you’re going to get everything back on track.

There really doesn’t need to be that much drama around it.

A quieter weekend hasn’t ruined anything. A takeaway hasn’t ruined your nutrition and missing one training session hasn’t suddenly made you less fit. Just get back to what you normally do at the next opportunity.

The same applies if we get an entire week of rain. You don’t need to wait for the sunshine to come back before you start moving again. Change the plan slightly if you need to, but keep doing something.

Enjoy the Summer, Whatever the Weather Does

Ultimately, summer should still be enjoyed. If the sun comes out, get outside, go for walks, have BBQs, go away for the weekend and make the most of it. Equally, if we get a week where it does nothing but rain, it doesn’t mean all of those healthy habits have to disappear until the weather improves.

Long-term fitness is about being able to adapt.

There will always be things that disrupt the perfect routine, whether that’s the weather, holidays, work, family life or simply not feeling particularly motivated one week. You don’t need to control all of those things. You just need a routine that is flexible enough to keep going around them.

So when the next spell of summer rain arrives, don’t worry about being perfect. Keep your training booked in, keep moving where you can, eat well most of the time and enjoy the odd BBQ or ice cream when the sunshine eventually decides to come back.

A few grey days don’t need to turn into a few grey weeks.

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