Tips To Find A Healthy Balance Between Staying Fit and Enjoying Life!

When you’re into your fitness, it can be really easy to get all consumed by it and to end up not having a healthy balance between your fitness and enjoying yourself. However, our physical health is just as important as our mental health, and so you need to look after yourself and make sure you’re not punishing yourself. So, we’re here to introduce a few simple ways to find the right balance, without needing to compromise on either your health or your social life! 

Remember One Day or Night Off Won’t Make A Difference

The first thing to remember when you’re looking for a balance between your social and fitness life is that enjoying yourself for one day or one night won’t make a difference to your progress. If you go out drinking for the day, or eat what you want for a day, you’re not going to completely reverse everything that you’ve done. If going out and letting loose with your friends is something you enjoy doing, then don’t cut it out of your life completely. So, enjoy yourself!

If every weekend you’re going out and drinking and eating whatever you want, then it will likely set you back, however every now and again it won’t do. When you do go out drinking or eating, it’s important that you don’t then let your healthy habits slip the next day. For example, if you’ve eaten unhealthy foods on Saturday, try not to carry on that into the next day and instead get back to eating healthy and nutritious foods that fuel your body. You should also never restrict yourself the day before or after you have plans as it will result in your body being unbalanced, when the best thing you can do is just carry on as you normally would. 

Get Enough Sleep

No matter where you’re going or what you’re doing, try to make getting enough sleep a priority. So, if you are going out and enjoying yourself with friends, try to make sure you’re still getting 7-9 hours of sleep, whether that means going out slightly earlier to get home earlier, or making sure you have a lie in. A lack of sleep can impact all elements of our lives, from how our brain functions to our body’s ability to recover, and so it will then have a knock on effect for days potentially. When you’re going out drinking or travelling or whatever else you’re doing, if you make getting sleep a priority, it’ll help you to maintain other healthy habits and stay active, too. 

Focus On Adding Positive Things, Not Fully Restricting Yourself

Life is too short to not eat the things you enjoy, and so rather than trying to fully restrict yourself and eat clean all the time, the trick to maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle is to focus mainly on introducing more positive foods to your diet. So, make sure you’re eating a great variety of fruit and veg, nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, lean protein sources and healthy fats, to fuel all different areas of your body. When you make these a priority in your diet, you’ll be fuelling your body well, and then you can still enjoy the foods that you love most without neglecting your body of what it needs. You may also naturally want to eat less of the unhealthier foods when your body is full of nutritious foods. 

One element to focus on in terms of healthy additions to your diet that have a fantastic impact on your health is gut health foods. Eating more foods that are good sources of probiotics (healthy bacteria) like kefir, kimchi, sauerkraut and miso will help to feed the bacteria in your gut and then that benefits all areas of your health. So, if you know you’re going out drinking or going for dessert or pizza with friends, eat a nice nutritious meal beforehand to eat the foods that your body will thrive off, then you can enjoy the foods that are good for your soul, too. 

Plan Non-Drinking Activities Too

Last but not least, we’d recommend planning non-drinking activities too. Whilst going out drinking and eating with friends is fun, there are so many things you can do that are much cheaper and healthier for you, to help find a balance. So, you might go out one weekend a month, but then try to plan activities that aren’t surrounding drinking too. Here are some ideas: 

• Have a picnic in the park and play ball games
• Try out a new fitness class
• Join a run club
• Hire bikes and go cycling
• Go hiking at a local beauty spot
• Have a board game night with healthy snacks
• Go paddle boarding on a local lake
• Put your going out dresses on and enjoy a night of mocktails and homemade pizza at home
• Join a dance class
• Go on a walking tour of a city close to you

Having fun doesn’t have to involve unhealthy eating and drinking all the time!