ERF 848: Why Summer Is the Best Time to Get in Shape (Not the Worst)

What is going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast. I hope that you are doing super well. In this episode today, we are going to be covering why summer is the most important season for your fitness. I think this is a timely podcast heading into the summertime, at least here in the US. I know we have listeners from all over the world, so thank you so much if you are listening outside of the US. But here in the US, it's coming up on summer. And what if I told you that summer isn't the worst time to stay on track with your fitness? It's actually the best time to build consistency. On top of, I think what separates most people from making a little bit of progress, but then gaining it all back versus those who not only make progress, but stay consistent over the long haul, which is what I believe most people who listen to this podcast want to do. So So today I'm going to be kind of calling out the myth that you need to be perfect to see results. I'm going to be calling out the myth that you can't make progress over the summertime despite vacations, barbecues, you know, being out and about, being more social. Because the truth is, if you can only stay on track when life is easy and things are perfect, you'll always fall off when life gets busy. And guess what? Life will always be busy. So in this episode, I'll break down exactly why building consistency now in the middle of beach trips, barbecues, social events, alcohol is the most powerful thing you can do for your long-term success. I'll share what, you know, I kind of personally do when I go on trips or vacations and how I adjust without being in the all-or-nothing mindset, which by the way is something I used to struggle with, the all-or-nothing mindset. And I'll also talk about what we coach a lot of our clients on to have them still enjoy social events, vacations, trips, but not completely undo their progress and also still make progress along the way. Because you can still make progress with your fitness during this busier time. And then last but not least, you can use this time to head into the latter half of the year with momentum. And I think this is one of the most important things we'll talk about in this podcast. So let's go ahead and dive right in. The first main part I want to talk about today is how there's never going to be a perfect time for you in your health and fitness journey. There's this facade, this myth that you wait to start things until it's perfect, or you wait to start things until you can go all in. And give it your all. And this is something that we talk with our clients on a bunch, which is there's— waiting for the right time is just a socially acceptable way to say I'm procrastinating. That's just like, that's really all it is, because life won't slow down for you to start. It will keep going. Your fitness journey has to fit into your life. You can't wait to make your entire life revolve around fitness because For 99% of people listening to this podcast, your entire life will never revolve around fitness. You have to figure out how to fit fitness into your life. And somebody just signed up for coaching with us yesterday, and she was talking about how she was the person who, I'll start Monday, I'll start Monday, I'll start after summer, I'll start after the holidays, I'll start in the new year. Or when their schedule is less busy, maybe their kids are out of school, or maybe they're back in school after the vacation, after the wedding, But if you can see a common theme here, there's always something that's going to come up. And after that thing, there's always going to be something after that thing. So what happens? You spend years and years in this cycle of waiting to start, waiting for things to be perfect. Maybe they are perfect for a brief period of time, a month, 2 months, 3 months, which, yes, I would count 3 months as a brief period of time. Maybe they are perfect conditions, but then inevitably life gets thrown at you. Something comes up during the, during the way, and it quote unquote throws you off track. But the only reason it throws you off track is because you think there has to be some sort of perfect time. You think you have to go all in and give it your 110% effort. And I'm gonna challenge this philosophy, this mindset of going all in on something, because in my opinion, going all in doesn't mean completely stopping when things don't go your way or completely stopping when things aren't perfect. In fact, In my opinion, going all in and being all in committed is no matter what comes up, you're going to do what it takes to stay on track. No matter what life throws at you, no matter how busy you get, all in means that you're going to find a way to make it work. And when I say find a way to make it work, I don't mean, you know, you're going to still hit 7 workouts per week and you're still going to eat clean and healthy and perfect. But you just find a way to keep going. That is real commitment. It's almost like, for those of you who are parents out there, I'm sure being a parent is not the easiest thing in the world, but you committed to being a parent. So even when your kids are driving you crazy, or even when it's really busy at work and maybe you're a bit exhausted and it's a busy season for you, you don't just abandon your responsibility of being a parent. You are committed. To being the best parent you can be. Fitness is the same exact thing. So if you're somebody out there and you keep telling yourself you're going to wait to go all in, you're going to wait that you can fully commit to this— again, I'm just going to be very honest with you, you're just using that as a nice way to let yourself off the hook for procrastinating, for making excuses. And just quite transparently, yeah, I mean, making excuses is the nicest way I could probably say that. It's, it's One of the analogies I like to use for this is it's like standing outside a train station waiting for the perfect weather before you hop on the train. Meanwhile, that train has already left 50 fucking times and you're still standing there wondering why you haven't gone anywhere. If you only do the work when it's easy, you'll never be consistent because life isn't easy. It's messy. If you can't show up when it's inconvenient, you'll always start and stop, always yo-yo, and always restart on Monday. So what should you be doing instead? We talked about the mindset, we talked about some of the problems and some of the issues. What should you do instead? Start when it's messy, start when you're busy, start even though you know you have a vacation coming up, start when even though you know you're not going to be able to work out 5, 6 days a week. Because if you start small and if you start during the chaos of life, you will build the skill of showing up through the chaos, and then you will watch yourself become unstoppable because life isn't going to calm down. You will watch yourself learn how to navigate through the challenges, whether it's time commitment, whether it's financial commitment, whether it's through, through busy seasons or trips or events. All of this, you need to learn how to do all of this with fitting it into your lifestyle. Because if you're the person— we'll keep using the topic of summer for this podcast— if you're the type of person who thinks after summer you'll get back on track because you can commit more, you're not traveling as much, okay, but then what happens during the holidays? Christmas, New Year's, Hanukkah, whatever you celebrate, Thanksgiving, Halloween. I was forgetting the holidays there for a second. So what happens then? You're gonna have to learn how to utilize these skills that you've built through the summer to stay on track then as well. Is this making sense? Are you seeing how this all ties together? This is why you can't be consistent. And I'm telling you this as a friend out of love. It's why you're struggling so much and it's why I'm trying to help you with it. And quite frankly, I think that's why in our coaching, I think this is one of the things that we help people with the most. And I often tell people with our coaching, you know, when they sign up, I'm like, wouldn't you rather have more accountability when things are busy? Wouldn't you rather have more guidance when things are busy? Wouldn't you rather have somebody there checking in with you, building a plan for you, taking out the guesswork when life is busy? Of course you would, because when it's easy, you probably don't even need it that much. Of course, it's always helpful, but it's especially during the busiest times you want the most help. And so if you are interested in signing up for our one-on-one coaching, There will be a link in the show notes of this podcast where you can apply to sign up for our one-on-one coaching because we help you start even when life is messy. We help you stay on track even when things aren't going to be perfect. And that's the only way you're ever going to truly get the fitness results you're looking for. So that's number one. Now diving into kind of point number 2 here, and it's, it's kind of a nice little piggyback. If you can handle summer, you can handle anything. Summer isn't a setback. It's almost like your training ground, so to speak. If you can stay consistent now— not perfect— but if you can stay consistent now when life is busy, it's social, it's unpredictable, then like I was mentioning in the previous point, you become unshakable. You become unstoppable. You become somebody who actually learns how to stay consistent and build consistent habits with their health and fitness. If you're listening to this podcast, you don't want a quick fix. You don't want to lose 20 pounds in a month. Well, maybe you do, but deep down you know you don't because you want something that's going to be sustainable. You don't want to keep starting and stopping and starting and stopping. And I think people treat summer like a pass to check out. I'll get back to it when summer ends. I'll get back to it after my vacations. I'll get back to it after travel. But again, if you only stay on track when it's convenient, you're never going to get the results. Consistency isn't built in. I want you to really listen to this for a second. Consistency isn't built in perfect conditions. It's built when things are imperfect and you show up anyway. That's when you earn your stripes. That's when you— I often think of this sometimes like athletes, you know, and this is— sports are always a great analogy, I believe. Because let's take any sport, any athlete who wins the championship— Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, whoever— it's not the championship game that has built them to that point. The way that they perform in that game is based off of what they did in the summer, what they did in the offseason, what they did when, you know, things weren't perfect and they were tired and they didn't want to go train again, they didn't want to go show up again. That's when true consistency is built. Full transparency, literally right before this podcast. So I'm recording this podcast on Tuesday. You guys will hear this on Wednesday or whenever you hear this, but this will be released on Wednesday. I just got back from a trip from Colorado feeling a little bit under the weather. Nothing crazy, but like my voice is, my throat is a bit hoarse, a little bit. Not sure if it's coming out on the, on the audio or not. I haven't been sleeping the best and I'm just tired. And I was laying on my couch right before this and I was like, I really don't want to do any work the rest of the day. I kind of want to just sit here and sleep the rest of the day. But I also knew this moment in time, whether I decided to do this podcast or not, these are the moments that build the consistency. These are the moments that build discipline. These are the moments that build whether you end up being successful with your goals. Or not. And I think people forget that a lot of times. Either you forget it, or the emotions of in the moment are so powerful and they take over what you know to be true. You know, for you to actually build consistency, you need to do the things you're supposed to do even when you don't feel like it. You know that. So when the summer rolls around and you get this urge to back off of your fitness, so to speak, or go all in and all out, you got to remember you're not going to build consistency when you get back to it. I know you think you are because you're like, oh, I'll get back to it and I'll be able to go all in, but that's not what builds consistency. What builds consistency is still working through it despite the fact that the summer might be busy and you're traveling and your kids are out of school and whatever other excuses that you are currently coming up with. This is when You build the consistency, not when it's easy for you. So again, I want to quickly touch on, um, I mentioned I was in Colorado this past weekend. When we talk about staying consistent, it doesn't mean being perfect. And let me show you what this means. So I knew when I was in Colorado, I was probably— I was going to go out to eat with, you know, my friends and our employees. So I knew that my dinners were probably going to be a bit more on the higher calorie side. So what did I do during the day? I had a lower calorie breakfast and I tried to have a lower calorie lunch. I wasn't saving a bunch of calories for dinner to binge. That's not what I recommend. That's not what I would do for you. But I knew that, okay, dinners are going to be a bit higher calories, and maybe for this weekend I'm not going to be in a calorie deficit. I might be in a calorie maintenance or even a slight surplus. And that's okay because it's about being consistent. It's not about being perfect. So slightly pulled back breakfast, slightly pulled back lunch, ate a little bit of a bigger dinner and dessert, and I moved on with the rest of the day. Like, I knew that's what I was going to do. So I also think when you have the proper expectation of what you're going to do for your trip or your barbecue or your social gathering or whatever the case may be, you have to have a plan and you have to be willing To be flexible. You have to be willing to understand it's not going to be perfect. When I got to Colorado, the first thing I did was I went to the grocery store. I got eggs, I got Greek yogurt, I got 2 salad bags, I got some fruit, and like I got the staples of what I knew I'd probably have for lunch and breakfast. And then I knew I was going out to eat later during the dinner time period. So doing that, I just was able to work within what I knew I could work with. And it's okay. Like I wasn't going to be perfect. I wasn't hitting my calories. I wasn't using my Clubhouse app to track my calories on those days, and that's okay because guess what? Sunday when I got back home, what did I do? Immediately started tracking again. I got my groceries, I made sure I was back on track. Everything's normal. So being flexible— you want to have the kind of flexibility that keeps you going for years, not just for weeks, if that makes sense. And I also want to talk about some things we do with our clients to help them stay flexible, stay consistent, and build that consistency during these times. So, and again, this will fall into if you're traveling, if you're going to social events, if you are going on vacation, all these things I'm about to say can help you out. So number 1 is change up your workouts. Another example I'll use myself, I'm going to Florida tomorrow and these next couple of days. I haven't really decided yet if I'll work out or not on this trip. That probably will depend on the weather, if I'm being very honest with you. I might hit up some gyms if the weather's not great, but if the weather's great, I very well might just say, I'm going to hit my 10,000 steps per day. I'm going to go on the beach. I'm going to swim in the ocean, and I'm going to eat some good food, and that'll be that. So, but maybe that is you. Maybe you just set a step goal as opposed to, you know, still getting in your structured workouts. Or maybe if you're traveling, Maybe you do a bodyweight workout only. We get— we've given our clients bodyweight 10-15 minute workouts because I know for a lot of people, even just keeping the routine, keeping the structure, keeping the habit of moving your body can be very beneficial. So it might be something as simple as a bodyweight workout, or maybe it's a dumbbell-only workout that we give our clients sometimes when they're traveling because maybe they're in a hotel gym and they don't have barbells, cables, hack squat machine, leg press machine. So simply switching up your workouts and also understanding that maybe if you normally work out 4 times a week and now you're only going to work out 2 or 3 times a week, that's okay as well. Because again, it doesn't have to be perfect. The second thing is just giving clear guidelines around food. And this is something that we call our Bright Lines, where again, I'll use myself when I was in Colorado. And probably what'll happen in Florida as well. For breakfast, I have to have a ton of protein, and I try to keep it lower calorie, higher veggie, higher fruit meal. So that is a very bright line for me. I have to get like— I'm talking at least 40 to 60 grams of protein at dinner— I'm sorry, at breakfast at least. And I'm trying to keep the carbohydrates low other than fruit, and I'm trying to incorporate a lot of veggies to have a low calorie high-volume, high-protein meal. And you don't have to go low-carb. This is kind of the way I like to approach it when I'm traveling. That's an example of a very clear guideline. Or let's say you are going out to eat. Maybe your clear guideline is you have to pick between appetizer, dessert, or alcohol. Those are the 3 indulgences people usually get into. Pick one of them. Don't have all 3. Or maybe you pick 2 and don't have all 3. There's no right or wrong answer here, but just just giving yourself these clear guidelines when it comes to your nutrition will help you stay on track because you actually are defining what on track means versus I'll just eat healthy, I'll try to stick to my calories, I'll do that. Like, you need to be clear and specific because then you will know what that means. You'll know you are within your guardrails, so to speak, and you'll know that you are winning that day. That will make you feel less guilty. That will make you feel less shameful. That will make you feel like you are on the right track. And all of that stuff turns into not only avoiding the all-or-nothing mentality and building consistency, but what it will also do is allow you to actually enjoy the trip, the social event, the vacation, whatever it is, because that's why you're doing it anyway. You're not going on vacation to stay in your weight range. You're going on a vacation, a trip, a social event to enjoy the people around you, make memories, laugh, all all these great things. So having these very clear guidelines around food will help you do that. The third thing we do with our clients a lot— which, by the way, if you are interested in coaching with myself and my team one-on-one, click the link in the show notes of this podcast. There will be a link that says apply for one-on-one coaching. Click that link and we'll be reaching out to you to get some more information from you. The third thing we do is challenges leading up to a trip and when you get back from a trip. So for example, we might have a challenge of, you know, a 4-week, very dialed in, damn near perfect calorie deficit. Why do we do this? A couple of reasons. Number one, I think most people are just more motivated leading up to some sort of event, which you can take advantage of that. Number 2, I think it also allows you to— I don't want to say not feel as guilty because I just mentioned you shouldn't be guilty on vacation or a trip or a social gathering. But if you know you just put in a ton of work the 4 weeks leading up to it. If you take a week and enjoy yourself— again, not binge and not go crazy, but taking a week to enjoy yourself— you'll have less guilt around it and less bad feelings because you just did a challenge and you were very consistent leading up to it. And these challenges don't even have to be like a weight loss challenge. It's more— maybe it could be a workout challenge, a consistency challenge. It could be, it could be a calorie is a challenge, but doing something leading up to it, I think, usually helps people take advantage of the motivation and allow yourself to enjoy the vacation or the trip a bit more. And then also having a challenge right after you get back, because most people make the mistake of maybe you do dial it in before you go on the trip, you go and enjoy yourself, but then it takes a long time for you to get back on track after. And this is where now that one weekend, one long weekend, one week turns into a month turns into 2 months turns into holy shit, it's the holidays and I've gained 25 pounds since that trip. And it all starts from you not just getting right back on track after. As an example, every time I take a trip, I always, always, always before I get back on the plane or whatever, I always order my groceries to be delivered for right around the time that I'm gonna get back home. Because that way when I get back home, usually I don't have a ton of food because I just was gone for 3 days, 5 days, 7 days, whatever the case may be. So when I get back home, I have my groceries, I have my food, and it's just easier for me to get right back into my routine. So doing something for yourself to make sure you get right back to it after— that is one of the most under-talked-about and underutilized things. It's, it's just as important to get right back on track after as it is to get leading up to it as well. And then I also think with our clients, we do a lot of— we do, you know, weekly check-ins and things of that nature. It really forces you to take a second and reflect and prioritize what you want to do, especially getting back after the trip. If you get back after the trip, you know, I'll use the example, a lot of our coaches have check-ins with our clients on Mondays. So if you get back on a Sunday, you check in on Monday, you're automatically back into my fitness goals, my health goals, consistency. What do I do to get back on track? I didn't fuck up all my progress. I didn't ruin all my progress. Everything's okay. Let's get right back to it. Just that mindset, getting back into that mindset, I have found to be— I have found to be invaluable to our clients to help them maintain their consistency. So those are just a few of the things that we do with our clients to help them get back on track after a trip. And again, I think it's just the, the key message here: stop trying to revolve your life around fitness and instead learn how to integrate fitness into your life. And everybody's life is different, and I don't want you to judge yourself or judge what you are or are not doing in a social event or on a vacation or on a trip to anybody else. Because for example, I like working out. Like, that's something I really enjoy doing. For example, when we were in Colorado, I worked out on Thursday and Saturday because, like, all of us, everybody there enjoyed working out because we all work in my company here. But that's what we enjoy doing. But if you don't fucking love working out, it's okay. Go get your steps for that week. Go get your steps for that long weekend and get back to your workouts afterwards. This this theory of you have to be a certain way or you have to do a certain thing, otherwise it's not good enough. No, it's gonna be good enough if you take the time to make a solid plan beforehand. And everybody's plan is going to look different. We coach all kinds of clients across all different fitness levels and things of that nature. Everybody's plan looks different, and that's okay. Yours can too. But you got to figure out what's going to work for you and don't compare yourself to other people. All that to be said, And again, one more time, if you're not sure how to adjust to your plan, if you're not sure how to come up with a plan, if you think having someone check in with you on a weekly basis, hold you accountable, help make you plans for the trip, for after the trip, challenges leading up to it, anything, click the link in the bio, in the show notes of the podcast for our one-on-one coaching. We would love to hear from you. We'd love to see if you'd be a good fit for that. Now, The third main point that I want to touch on here is you're either building momentum or you're losing it right now during summer. You're either putting in reps to build that momentum or you're digging yourself a deeper hole that you're going to have to get out of eventually later. And I've said this before in different contexts, but with summer, if you just throw your hands up and say, I can't stay consistent, I can't stay on track, I might as well not even try, I'll get back to it after summer. You can choose to do that if you would like, but it's gonna make it that much harder for you, and you're digging yourself a deeper hole you're gonna have to get out of later. And oh, by the way, what comes later? The holidays come later. Back to school comes later. All these things come later where, once again, like I talked about earlier, you could make the same excuse. The holidays are coming up. I'm gonna have to travel. There's gonna be food. It's gonna be hard to stay on track. You're gonna you're gonna say the same exact thing. Most people don't realize if you go into summer, I'm sorry, if you go into the holiday season and or the back to school season, you could use both. But if you go into those seasons already feeling behind, unmotivated, bloated, you gain ten, fifteen, twenty pounds, you're out of rhythm. What do you think happens next? Do you think you just flip a switch and you dial back in and it's so easy for you to get back to it? Maybe some people are like that. I don't think most people are like that. Remember, an object in motion stays in motion. Think about if you are pushing a boulder downhill. Once you start pushing the boulder downhill, it's going to be that much easier for it to just keep going. If you're pushing a boulder uphill, it's going to be much harder for that boulder to keep going because the object isn't already in motion. If you build consistency now, you're going into the fall and you're going into the winter with your habits, your confidence, your momentum already in motion in a positive way. And this is, again, just being real with you, something most people don't think about. You're either going in momentum in a positive way, and this doesn't always mean that you're losing weight, for example. I, I don't just mean from a progress perspective of your fat loss or a number on the scale. You could be going in a positive direction with your momentum from not binging on your vacation and simply more or less maintaining your weight. You could keep a positive momentum going by hitting your daily steps or still getting in bodyweight workouts workouts. You could keep a positive momentum going from not letting Friday night barbecue with my friends turn into Saturday binge fest, Sunday binge fest, I'll just restart Monday. All of these ways are opportunities for you to build positive momentum in your journey. It doesn't just mean you would lose the most fat in the summertime. Maybe you do, maybe you don't, but there's many ways you can build positive momentum. You can— I said an object in motion stays in motion. That doesn't just go for the positive direction. That goes for the negative direction. So again, if you've already kind of been spiraling, if you've already not been consistent, if you're already going in the negative opposite direction, it's going to be easier for you to go in the negative opposite direction. You can stop it. It's just going to be harder. It's going to require more force. It's going to require more willpower, more discipline. Momentum and motivation are— it's a funny thing because it really can snowball in either direction. And I think just being aware of that first and foremost is going to make your summer that much better for you. Again, even if you don't lose the most weight, because you don't have to lose the most weight for this summer to be effective and for this summer to be positive and for this summer to be something that contributes to your health and fitness journey in a positive way over the long run. Like, truly think about if this summer for you was the summer that you finally stopped saying, I'll start back up after summer, or when you finally stopped waiting for the perfect time, or when you finally started to understand you can still stay consistent when you're going on these trips. You can still stay consistent over the weekends. You can still build positive momentum. Imagine what kind of positive momentum you would build in the right direction. Think about that, because again, that is something that's going to truly allow you to change your life. I was trying to think of like a different way to say that because I hate the phrase change your life, but it is— but it's true. You can actually change your life if you take advantage of this right now. And I want you to take advantage of this right now because this summer doesn't have to be where your fitness goals go to die. It can be where they come to life, but only if you're willing to stop waiting, start adapting, build momentum that then lasts through the rest of the year. And I'll tell you now, I'm going to tell you more or less the same thing when the holidays roll around because people do the same shit for the holidays. So just get out in front of it. I'm begging you. That's why I'm telling you now. That's why I'm recording this podcast right now for you. Get out in front of it. This does not have to be a time where you hold yourself back. You're holding yourself back in your head. Stop, stop trying to live your life revolving around fitness. Learn how to build fitness into your life. Stop trying to think about this all-or-nothing mentality. Understand there are different ways to make progress and different ways to build positive momentum. There's no reason that you still can't make progress towards your goals. There's no reason. Okay, last couple of things for you guys. So it leaves me with this again. If you're waiting for the perfect time to start, stop. If you're using summer as a reason to check out, flip it into the reason you finally learn how to stay on track no matter what. Because if you can figure out now how to do this when life is busy, social, unpredictable, you'll never struggle being consistent again. Does that sound good to you? You'll never struggle being consistent again. Does that sound like something you want? I know it is, but this is where you build it. This is where that happens. It does not happen when you're perfect. All right, and again, that's exactly what we help people with in our one-on-one coaching program. We build the plan for you around your life, not on top of it, around your life. We adjust workouts when you're traveling. We set realistic guidelines instead of rigid meal plans, and we hold you accountable every step of the way. So if you're ready to start— stop starting over and actually make this summer where you get consistent for good, click the link in the show notes and apply for one-on-one coaching today. Let's help you start building that momentum, that consistency that finally sticks. Guys, I appreciate you listening to the podcast. Again, link in the show notes if you're interested in coaching. Let's go out, let's make it a great summer, and let's build that momentum. All right.