Break Your 5 Bad Summer Habits

By Denis Faye

"Summertime and the livin' is easy."—George Gershwin, Porgy and Bess

There's truth in that classic song lyric. Long hours in the sun. Staying up late. Drinking one more brewski by the pool.

But autumn is just around the corner, and that means the rules change. That extra hamburger might have been okay after a day of playing beach football, but when you're on the couch watching the NFL®, it's your worst enemy. Add to this the fact that you're returning to work after a long vacation and the kids are heading back to school. With that, our stress levels tend to skyrocket.

But they don't have to. The weigh station between those hot August nights and the cold November rain is a great time to get back on track. You might want to take this opportunity to do a transformation program like the Beachbody Ultimate Reset® to help you kick some of those bad summer habits and get yourself ready for the excesses of the upcoming holiday season.

1. Backyard BBQ binging. We eat like pigs in the summer. Fried chicken, funnel cakes, macaroni salad, perhaps if you've gone really off the rails, fried butter. 
   
   But you're probably also spending a lot of time outside, so you're burning off some of those calories. As the temperature drops and you retreat indoors, you'll likely be moving around less. And, unless you adjust your diet, you're probably going to pack on the pounds. 
   
   That's where the Beachbody Ultimate Reset comes in. The 21-day program is designed for just such a situation. It helps you reduce your calories and fill your diet with foods and supplements that cleanse, revitalize, and train your body and mind to function better while consuming less. It will help stabilize your blood sugar so you're craving fewer sweets. You'll also find that by eating less, your stomach will shrink, and you'll feel fuller faster. 
   
   Doing the Reset now can prepare you for the holiday onslaught of goodies. Avoiding candy and calorie-rich foods is much easier when your system is already acclimated to eating healthy foods in smaller portions.
2. Partying all night long. Odds are, you didn't get your 7 to 8 hours this summer and you probably didn't miss it. With less stress, lots of sunshine, and more outdoor time, you were unwittingly avoiding telltale signs of exhaustion such as depression, lethargy, and illness. Once you're housebound, it's a different story. The kids will be bringing home heaven-knows-what from school (and you from the office) where those germs cycle around and around in the closed environment of your home. 
   
   A great way to fight cold and flu season (besides opening the windows sometimes) is to stay rested—and the best way to stay rested is to sleep. While Western and Holistic medicine disagree on plenty, they're universally agreed on the way a night's sleep recharges the immune system. So make a point of missing the late show. Turn off the tube and hit the hay.
3. Having a lazy brain. Summer is a great time for physical activity. When you're out and active, odds are that your chess game probably suffers. 
   
   Take the opportunity of the approaching cool weather to find a class to enroll in for the fall. Take an arts course. Learn a new language. Learn how to make new healthy dishes at your local cooking school. Make a habit of playing chess or doing the crossword daily. Reengage your brain and you may not only help ward off brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, you'll also discover fun new activities that you may fall in love with for a lifetime!
4. Bad time management. All that sunshine does wonders for your mood. But what happens when the days get shorter and cooler and the bad weather hits? And, if you're in school or have kids who are, couple that with the stress of a tighter schedule. 
   
   Here's some ways to get a grip on stress before it takes ahold of you. 
   
   
   • Get a Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) lamp to help combat the blues that can come on when you're getting less sunlight every day.
   • Meditate every morning or evening for 10 to 15 minutes. A recent UCLA study showed that subjects practicing Kirtan Kriya Meditation for 12 minutes daily experienced a reduction in overall inflammation—the body's response to stress.
   • Schedule at least 10 minutes every day in your calendar just for you. Take this time to do something that gives you pleasure. Drinking a cup of tea, watching the sunrise (or sunset), taking a walk, reading, or listening to music are just some ideas you could try. It may not seem like much, but these 10 minutes of peace will probably gain you 30 minutes of productivity.
5. Exercising. Wait, what? Actually, this is the summer habit you don't want to break. Just because you might not be wearing a bathing suit for the next eight months doesn't mean you should stop exercising. 
   
   You should avoid most exercise during Beachbody Ultimate Reset (except gentle exercise such as Tai Cheng, restorative yoga, and walking), so use that time as a recovery phase to let your muscles experience some deep healing after all those summer activities. 
   
   Once you're done, maybe consider giving yourself a fall or winter challenge. Try a Beachbody program that you haven't mastered yet. Join a soccer or basketball league and make some new friends. Try a sport or activity you've never attempted before.