Careful of the changing seasons
You have an internal “season” clock that responds to the season’s changing amounts of daylight. It affects your daily rhythm. It dictates the foods you treasure. It even affects your activity levels.
With winter coming your body is wired to have you get fatter and be less active. Why? Prepare for the coming winter where millennia ago food was not plentiful and you battled cold day in day out. It has been refined... and refined… and refined over many millennia preparing your body for what’s coming up and what you need to do. Hey, it was refined through a whole long lineage of past relatives, all who survived (after all – you are here), and with the return of this autumn it is preparing you for another winter.
To illustrate this, consider the mountain bear (I ran past one in the bushes on Saturday stuffing its face with mountain berries): Eat, Eat, Eat… and eat some more. What’s coming? Winter. Like chasing down calories for the bear in the fall, so will your internal clock, it will be directing your mind’s eye to focus on loading up for the coming winter.
So don’t be surprised if you start languishing for higher calorie yummies, and a lot of them. Colder weather is upon us. Incrementally shorter and shorter day light hours are upon us. Like that bear, stuffing its face, not recognizing me run by, your internal season clock that has had many millennia of refining for your ancestor’s survival and yours too BUT… HOLD IT, we live in warm houses now—we don’t need the extra layer of fat (at least I don’t), AND if we choose we can still exercise now (though more of a challenge with more darkness). Because we’ve created a world where this is possible.
So my advice to not fall into the mountain “bear trap” is this:
1. First and Foremost SCHEDULE your whole week’s activities before the week starts. Lock it in! Definitely no on the run scheduling!! Your internal clock will have your backside on the couch enjoying another movie night eating buttered popcorn sprinkled with sweet things in no time flat. It is NOT a battle. It is time to schedule AND then you win.
2. Regarding the food thing:
a. Eat more non-processed foods—
b. Veggies and fresh water, very important. Carrots and fresh fruit leave you in a great place to combat the munchies.
c. Insure you’re Breakfast hardy and Supper lightly (lots and lots of salad)
d. Finally, pack snacks you make and include cut up veggies. Learn a trick from the smoker’s habit change advise: Put something in your hand to stop you having it filled with a cigarette. So my advise to you is daily pack a bag of veggie/fruit munchies (carrots, apples, etc) to snack on – and keep the fresh water close at hand.
Happy fall hunting and stay away from the mountain berry bushes when you are out exercising… it can cause quite the fright coming across a bear.
