How to Successfully Navigate Busy and Stressful Seasons of Life without Putting Your Physique Goals on the Backburner!
Do you feel like every time you FINALLY get back into a good routine with nutrition and training that life inevitably throws you a giant curveball and your fitness and physique goals have to get put on the back burner AGAIN?
If so, you’re not alone, as I struggled with these same feelings for many years.
So much so that I often wondered if achieving a strong, sexy, toned, athletic body was even in the cards for me.
And while it took some time to get all of the pieces of the puzzle together, I finally figured out how to navigate the curveballs without sacrificing my goals.
Which is how I have not only been able to consistently make progress towards my physique goals and improve my body composition over the past four years, I have also been able to shift my mindset around stressful situations and improve my overall quality of life.
I now use these strategies to help my StrongHer Athletes learn how to successfully navigate anything life throws at them without feeling as though they have to sacrifice their goals every time things get a little crazy.
And in today’s post I’m going to share these strategies with YOU so that you can confidently navigate busy and stressful seasons of life without sacrificing progress towards the strong, sexy, badass body of your dreams!
So, let’s get right to it!
Establish a Foundation
A house built on a weak foundation will not be able to weather a storm.
The same is true of habits needed to support your training and physique goals.
If you have not taken the time to build a solid foundation, your habits will crumble as soon as life starts to get a little stressful/busy.
This foundation includes your meal planning/prepping strategy, training routine, sleep schedule, and stress management techniques.
As they are all imperative to long term success regardless of the phase of nutrition you are in (deficit, maintenance, bulking, etc.).
Which is why I HIGHLY RECOMMEND spending time establishing this foundation AT MAINTENANCE prior to attempting to navigate a deficit.
The biggest mistake you can make is to condition yourself to only ever care about these things when dieting. That mindset is the reason everything falls apart as soon as life gets busy, and why you end up feeling as though you’ll never make progress.
Building yourself a foundation of habits will give you something to lean into during those busy/stressful times and instead of feeling like a chicken running around with its head cut off, you’ll be able to essentially put yourself on autopilot and keep moving forward.
Get Back to Maintenance
Depending on how busy/stressful this particular season of life is (especially if it’s expected to last more than a week or two) I highly recommend getting back up to and spending time at maintenance for two reasons:
1️⃣If you are constantly busy/stressed your body will have a hard time coming out of a sympathetic state (ie. fight or flight mode). When stuck in fight or flight your body is going to do what it can to conserve as much energy as possible to eliminate the threat to your well being.
And while YOU know that you are stressed because you are trying to navigate a messy divorce, a big presentation at work, or coordinating the drop off of 3 kids at 3 different locations 5 days a week, your body thinks you’re going to fight a bear.
And because of this, your metabolism is actually going to slow down to conserve energy for this perceived fight, and instead of losing fat as planned, you’ll actually end up tired and inflamed with a slew of digestive issues.
2️⃣ You are more than likely going to have a VERY hard time being adherent enough to your deficit to actually make any progress even if being stuck in a constant sympathetic state doesn’t prove itself to be an issue.
Which is not only SUPER frustrating for you due to not being able to achieve the anticipated results, it’s time wasted yo-yoing your intake throughout the week when you could benefit from, and actually make progress focusing on staying dialed in at maintenance.
While I know that may not be fun to hear, especially when you do have fat loss goals, spending additional time at maintenance and focusing on those foundational habits will only help to set you up for a more successful fat loss phase in the future.
And if the thought of getting up to maintenance sounds like a giant waste of time; I would invite to read my blog post on setting realistic goals and expectations for maintenance and challenge you to work on your mindset there, as busy/stressful seasons of life aren’t going to be the only thing holding you back from achieving the strong, sexy, body of your dreams.
SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY, SIMPLIFY
I cannot say this enough - SIMPLIFY EVERYTHING.
Nothing adds unnecessary stress to an already busy/stressful season of life like overcomplicating things that don’t need to be - like your meals and training.
Meals
I’ll say it one more time - KEEP THAT SHIT SIMPLE!
This isn’t the time to try 5 new recipes a month, or whip out the 17 step recipe for your grandma’s homemade lasagna that takes 3 hours of prep.
This is the time to use the free Meal Planning 101 guide (below), write out your favorite sources of protein, carbs, fruits and veggies and build out some simple, balanced plates that can be batch prepped in 1-2 hours tops.
Eggs/Egg whites, english muffin, and strawberries
Chicken, sweet potatoes, and green beans
Steak, mashed potatoes, and broccoli
Ground beef, rice, and zucchini
You see the trend, right?
Now just add your sauces and seasonings of choice and you have simple, balanced meals to lean into that not only help you meet your intake goals, but help your body feel and function its best on a daily basis.
And because you’ve leaned into your foundational meal planning/prepping strategy you not only feel great, you have also saved yourself tons of time and decision fatigue throughout the week.
Training
There are a few things you can do to help simplify training so that you can continue to make effective progress towards your goals.
1️⃣ Reduce the number of days you expect to train each week.
I know this sounds scary, and like this will lead to a loss of progress, but if you’re training 5x per week and only have time to train 4 or even 3x per week then adjusting your expectation and choosing a program that reflects the amount of time you can currently dedicate to training will be a far better course of action than trying, failing, and feeling frustrated with not being able to train all 5 days or simply throwing your hands in the air and not training at all.
You can always bump back up to your normal training schedule once life settles back down.
If you’re working with a 1:1 coach (like myself) they should have no problem adjusting your training schedule to different seasons of life. I do this for my athletes all the time.
2️⃣ Follow a program.
If you are not already, find a program to follow that reflects your goals and time you have available to train. Bouncing from one program or challenge to another and/or making stuff up on the fly is not only going to limit your ability to progressively overload, it’s going to lead to more stress and decision fatigue.
And if you’re looking for a program that is both easy to follow and prioritizes progressive overload for improvements in performance and body composition you can try out the StrongHer Training Membership where you’ll gain access to 3, 4, and 5x per week training programs for 4 weeks for ONLY $4 (typically $49.99) using the link below.
Plan Ahead
You’ve got your foundation in place, you're eating at maintenance, and you're simplifying everything you can to reduce stress and decision fatigue.
Now all that’s left to do is sit down with your schedule (as far in advance as you can) and plan ahead.
For nutrition I typically tend to look week to week (which should be fairly consistent with the meal planning/prep strategy you already have in place), and for training I try to look 2-4 weeks ahead (especially if travel is involved).
This will allow you to predetermine when you’re going to get your training sessions in and whether or not there’s any wiggle room for lazy days (ie. you don’t need rest, you just don’t feel like training that day).
Doing this will help you to prioritize your sessions when you need to prioritize them while also leaving room for everything else you’ve got going on.
I have found that winging it rarely, if ever works, and again only causes more stress, decision fatigue, and increases the likelihood that your goals get put on the backburner.
Bringing it All Together
While it may sound like you’ll be spending MORE time, not less, on your goals, implementing these strategies will actually help to reduce the amount of time and stress required to prioritize your goals while navigating busy seasons of life.
This has proven the case for myself, as well as my StrongHer Athletes who have all been navigating busy, stressful summers while continuing to make some incredible progress towards the strong, sexy, badass body of their dreams!
And if you’re struggling, and tired of trying to figure out how to navigate these stressful seasons of life while trying to build a strong, sexy body all on your own, feel free to submit an application or reach out at amber@strongherproject.com to book a free consultation to chat about which StrongHer Project offer would be best for you at this time!
