It’s quite ironic that I’m writing this post while on holiday in the Lake District. It’s our first family holiday of the year and I must admit, it crept up on me. The weather so far has been great and we’ve enjoyed visits to Keswick, Buttermere and Aira Force. We love taking photographs to capture our adventures and on the first night we watched the sun go down over Ashness Jetty.

We have also enjoyed a day out at Buttermere and the weather again was very kind to us. In the water were glassy reflections, it was one of the most beautiful things we’d ever seen! I could go on and on but I won’t! The point I’m making is that I’m putting my feet up and this is also giving me the chance to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

I’ve been on a brand new seven week programme which has involved a new nutrition and weight training plan. I announced a few weeks ago that I wanted to get in the best shape of my life. Let’s just say my body needed the break as I’ve been religiously knocking on the gym door for 4-5 days a week. Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving every single minute of it but I’m now listening to my body and it needs rest.

Allowing your body rest is essential to muscle growth. After you workout, your body repairs damaged muscle fibers through a cellular process where it fuses muscle fibers together to form new muscle protein strands. I’ve been researching protein synthesis a lot lately and I will talk more about this in a future post. As I’m training more, I’m keeping a close eye on what I’m putting into my body. For example, getting the right level of protein in your body can be tricky at times and one way I’m doing this is to drink protein shakes.

I haven’t trained for three days now and although I’m missing it, I understand the importance of allowing my body to repair itself. I’ve been nursing a few minor aches and pains and I believe this rest will do me good. I had planned on doing a little bodyweight circuit today, so far it hasn’t happened as we’ve been too busy having family fun in the sun!

I recently read that unless you are competing at a professional level, you should follow the 80/20 rule. This basically means that twenty percent of your time should be left for enjoying life. So don’t let yourself get too wrapped up in perfection!

Sleep is also another key part of a healthy lifestyle and it can benefit your weight, mind, and much more. Sleep is also involved in the healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. The NHS say most adults need seven to nine hours a night for the best amount of sleep, although some people may need as few as five hours or as many as 10 hours of sleep each day. I’m definitely on the higher end of the scale, haha!

I love holidays, who doesn’t? It gives me time to reflect on the year so far and the rest of the year ahead. I told a friend recently that life is like a pizza, he laughed, naturally. The idea being that each segment represents part of your life – so family, work, hobbies etc represent slices of pizza. You can’t create more slices of pizza, you must trim other slices to either gain more time or welcome something else into your life. I understand it can be difficult to juggle everything going on in your life. If you set your priorities first, you can work backwards from them.

If you’re working too hard, either in the gym or at work – trying putting your feet up!

Thanks for reading,