What Not To Do When Taking Time Off

As many of you know I’ve been taking a bit of time due to the arrival of our second child. After having so much fun with my first What Not To Do posting I figured I would do it again. This time I want to focus on the specific topic of extended time off.

Whether your home because of that new arrival, you lost your job, work from home, or maybe your just taking some personal time; you want to make the right decisions. The last thing you want looming on your conscious or the scale is regret or feels of failure.

Don’t have food stashes

If your like me, your 9-5 is actually fairly easy to operate on autopilot during the week. There aren’t usually tons of sweets or food distractions sitting on your desk, maybe in the kitchen or on your friends desk but certainly not on yours right? At home however it’s usually an entirely different situation as there are likely stashes of tasty foods everywhere.

Throughout the past few years while I’ve been trying to lose this weight I’ve found that removing all of my food stashes has dramatically reduced my bad food decisions. Everyone is welcome and entitled to bad food from time to time but lets be honest, is the store really that far away? Not only will it make you think twice before jumping in the car just to eat that candy bar but maybe you’ll change your mind in route.

If your someone who absolutely has to have something in the house, like maybe my wife when she was pregnant, then limit your intake (and likely those who live with you). This is totally dependent on your willpower but portion control is the key here. You don’t need 10 different kinds of candy bars and you certainly don’t need 10 of each. So purchase them in small quantities and smaller sizes to control yourself when you do eat them.

Don’t sleep in, routine is good

I know this sounds crazy but it really does work. Continuing your normal daily routine is a good thing. If your like me and you often workout in the morning, do that when working from home as well. Just because you have less transit time doesn’t excuse you to get up later. If your like me and you want to sleep in then your likely to sleep in a little more and a little more and then miss your workout. Instead, use that extra morning time to read the blogs you love, tweet a bit, relax with your family, or meditate.

If your on vacation I think the same applies. You can always take afternoon naps and lets admit it, who doesn’t like naps? Maybe you don’t want to do the same routine on your vacation and that’s fine. Instead go for a walk or hike, play some tennis, go golfing, rent a bike … it doesn’t matter just get your heart pumping.

Don’t cascade bad decisions

So you had a bad lunch, that’s completely fine, life happens. It doesn’t make any sense to cascade that decision into successive meals throwing off your entire day or week. Just accept that life happens, you enjoyed what you ate (I hope), and move on.

The same advice goes for your workouts. Don’t kick yourself and try to kill yourself in the gym the next day for missing a workout, that usually leads to injury or overtraining problems. Instead continue on your regular plan skipping that workout and moving to the next.

Beating up or berating yourself or your body because of one decision isn’t healthy physically or mentally.

Don’t lose touch

Whether your taking time off for vacation or personal reasons you should try to stay accountable by staying in touch. You can do this via your blog, Twitter, email, FaceBook, a journal app like Momento, or even a written journal like a Moleskine.

For me staying in touch with people via Twitter when our baby arrived helped me to relax. Writing in my blog about workout problems, food indiscretions, and sharing pictures helped me to stay accountable and on track. Getting support from my online friends via Twitter and in my blog comments helped keep me motivated when I needed it most.

No, you don’t have to be wired to stay accountable … my point is that writing down things often helps later. Whether you write down what your doing, eating, or feeling … writing them down helps you understand better why your doing those things and can help you later from making the same mistakes or maybe duplicate the same successes.

Don’t forget to plan

Taking time off doesn’t excuse bad decisions. Even if your visiting a new place you can take a few minutes to find local restaurants that serve healthy food or pack some healthy supplements & snacks. Taking time off at home, even if your not working out, doesn’t excuse eating bad all the time as well. Even if the plan is a simple one, something is better than nothing. Don’t be caught with your workout or food pants down, remember your planning belt.

While I was at the hospital for a few days, attending to my wife and Bradley, I planned on doing my workouts by walking at a nearby park while everyone was sleeping. I was fortunate though that my wife received two free passes to a hospital gym, for delivering there, so I used those instead. Even though I didn’t follow the plan exactly I still had one. I knew staying on track with both fitness and food was going to be extremely hard at the hospital but by having a plan and making the right decisions I made it through that time relatively unscathed.

• Thursday Confession, The Ice Cream Monster
• My Resolutions For 2012
• Friday Weigh-In And Race Weekend
• Springing Ahead, Falling Behind
• Tapering My Work, Workouts, And Self Doubt