Author: Jolene Cooper

It’s time for a recap:

Last week I set 3 goals to make fitness a part of daily life.
My three strategies were to:
1.  Join a recreational sport league.
2.  Exercise with friends, to keep me motivated.
3. Try new activities that bring me out of my comfort zone.
Last week, I signed up for a recreational dodgeball league with some friends, so that covers #1 and #2. I have plans with some friends to tackle the Grouse Grind once again this weekend, which incorporates #2 and #3, as I doubt I’ll ever be comfortable on the Grind. I went ziplining last week, which definitely had #3 covered.
I would say I’ve been fairly successful incorporating regular exercise into my routine, but I can’t say the same for cutting out the snacking.
Two weeks ago, I shared some strategies to help reduce my snacking. Let me update you on my progress, or regress, I should say.

First, I’ll remind you of my 3 strategies:
1. Keep busy.
2. Avoid eating after 8pm.
3. Don’t purchase unhealthy snack foods.

I actually followed all of my own rules, but somehow found myself snacking even more than normal. I was pretty busy last week, didn’t eat late at night, and I didn’t buy any unhealthy snack foods at the grocery store. I did however, venture out for ice cream and indulged on a package of peanut butter M&Ms one night.

I think my downfall was that I failed to keep my house stocked with healthy snacking alternatives. I’d like to blame my local market for having poor quality produce on the day I went shopping, but I really didn’t put in any effort to go anywhere else. This week I’ll put in the effort to stock up on extra fruits and veggies and hopefully my sweet tooth will be satisfied by healthy alternatives.

In the meantime, is there such a thing as Chocoholics Anonymous? I think I would be their leader. Does anyone have effective strategies to overcome a chocolate addiction?

I’ve been in Vancouver for a little over four months now, and I’ve noticed some significant differences in fitness culture between provinces. In Ontario, You are considered ‘fit’ and active if you have a gym membership and go fairly regularly. Unless you’re an avid athlete, most Ontarian’s physical activity is conducted within gym facilities.  I hypothesize that this is largely due to the variable climate in Ontario and that for consistency sake, the gym is fairly climate controlled.  In Ontario, exercise is often seen as a chore, as something people dread and therefore find it difficult to include in their daily routine.

In British Columbia, activity is a way of life.  I’ve only been here for a few months, so this may not be fact, but purely observational.  The average B.C. resident is considerably more active than the average Ontarian. So first of all, give yourselve’s a pat on the back! Even though some of you feel you’re struggling with daily exercise, you are still MUCH more fit and healthy than Ontario!

B.C. residents incorporate fun physical activities into their lives, so it doesn’t feel like a chore.  Many of my colleagues are on recreational sports teams, rock climb on weekends, bike to work and do yoga on lunch breaks.  If you asked any of them if they dreaded these activities on a daily basis, the answer would be ‘no.’  They’ve found an activity they enjoy that allows them to be active, so these activities turn into more of a hobby than a chore. And this is my new challenge. To incorporate fun activities into my routine so I don’t ever dread exercise again.

So here is my plan to accomplish this:

1. Join a recreational sport league.

2.  Exercise with friends, to keep me motivated.

3. Try new activities that bring me out of my comfort zone.

Yesterday, I tried ziplining in Whistler. This is not something I could have ever seen myself doing, and truth be told, I was terrified.  But I did it. And now I feel like it takes a lot more to scare me off.  Hopefully I’ll be able to post some ziplining pictures for you tomorrow, but as of today, I’m enjoying my last day of vacation by walking to Granville Island and swimming at the beach.

I love how “It’s Raining!” is the top news story in Vancouver this week. I’m not even from here, and that doesn’t seem like its news to me.

To be fair, this week does feel a lot more like October than August. As I was fairly content exercising during the warmer temperatures, there were major adjustments that I had to make now that the temperature has dropped.

I’m a snacker at heart, and the heat wave took care of my after dinner sweet tooth. Now that it’s cooled off, my snacking tendencies have returned with a vengeance.  So my challenge this week is to control my snacking.  I’ve boiled it down to a 3 step strategy.

Step 1:  Get Busy
I have noticed that when I have the urge to snack, it’s not really when I’m hungry, it’s more likely that I’m bored.  I find that when I watch TV in the evenings, I’m so conditioned to snacking, regardless of whether or not I just ate dinner. To counteract this habit, I’ve tried to save all my emails to family and friends until evening when I’d normally just be sitting, watching TV. So now I am keeping my hands and brain busy so I hopefully forget about snacking altogether.

Step 2: Time’s up!
I’m a late night snacker. I usually want something sweet an hour or so after dinner. So, a few months ago I made a conscious effort to avoid eating after 8pm. Really, it was just an arbitrary time between when I finished dinner and when I went to bed.  It worked really well for a few weeks, but I slipped up once and then stopped being so strict about it. I think I’ll try to implement that cut off time again starting this week. 

Step 3: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
I’ve been pretty good at this one lately.  I think that’s mostly because I hate grocery shopping, so I’m always in a hurry to get out!  Simply put: if you don’t buy it, you can’t eat it. So I’ve avoided buying my favourite snack foods, like chips and cookies.  Instead I fill my basket with fruits and vegetables and yogurt. Most of the time when I’m in a snacking mood and can’t find the food I want to snack on, I lose the urge to snack.  That’s when I realize, I wasn’t actually hungry.  Sometimes, however, I am legitimately hungry, and then I prepare myself a healthy snack.

I’ll try these 3 strategies this week and report back with my success (or lack thereof).

From the title, you’re probably thinking one of two things.
1. I must be crazy.    Or
2. I must have spent the entirety of last week in a refrigerated body suit. 

Unfortunately, I don’t own a refrigerated body suit, and I have it on fairly good authority that I’m not crazy.  So hear me out.

First, let’s recap.  Last week record high temperatures were set, forest fires continue to rage all over the province, contributing to the horrendous air quality, and I shared my list of ways to stay active in the heat. 

So how did my plan to stay active in the heat work out, you ask?
Well, first of all, thank you for asking.  On Wednesday I ventured to my neighbourhood outdoor pool after work, along with a thousand other people. The pool was packed, with a lineup out the gate.  I did manage to swim and lounge in the pool for an hour or two, but I did find that I had to continuously remind myself to actually swim and use some muscles rather than just lazily floating on my back.  Let me say, it would have been game over if I’d had an inner tube. 

Thursday, as it seemed to get even hotter, I headed to the beach to try swimming in the ocean. Because, you know, it’s free.  I was scared it was going to be too cold, but given the scorching temperatures, there wasn’t such a thing as too cold anymore. It was glorious. Much more spacious than the pool, no line-ups and did I mention it was free?
I swam for awhile, then headed over to beach yoga, where I was the only one not sweating.  This is when I realized that not only does being immersed in water keep you cool while you exercise, it also keeps you cool for a while afterwards. Eureka! A new strategy for exercising during overwhelming heat waves!

So, I managed to keep fairly active during the heat wave and thankfully it’s cooler this week so far, so getting back into my regular fitness routine has been easy.
But I did have another heat-wave related struggle:  Finding food to eat.

As you know, I hate grocery shopping, and even though I sought the comfort of the air conditioned grocery store on more than one occasion last week, I didn’t feel like cooking or preparing food. Similarly to Patti, I avoided the kitchen like a cat avoids water.  Luckily, summertime means an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables at the market.  So the only meals I prepared were salads and combinations of fruits and yogurt.  It turns out the heat wave actually helped me eat healthier foods, aside from the occasional visit to the ice cream parlour, but that will be our little secret.
The heat wave also helped me incorporate other fitness activities that I may not have tried if my regular exercise wasn’t so unbearable. 

So thank you heat wave!  Until next year…