Your body is designed to sleep and rest more in winter, you have less food, so you have less ‘energy’ and therefore sleeping and resting is key.
I was lucky to take twelve women to a beautiful location in the middle of Victoria – Bright.
Bright this time of year has a spectacular colours as the leaves are changing and falling.
Autumn is a time to LET GO, to be like nature and let things or concerns go.
It is a season where you are readjusting from summer to winter and where you need to change from things like summer clothes to winter clothes, and summer fruits and vegetables to winter fruits and vegetables.
Your body is now adapting to store fat, ready for hibernation, and lack of food sources, it is also transitioning from later sunsets to earlier sunsets, getting darker quicker and therefore sleep time can become longer.
* you all know the doona hugs you more this time of year making it harder to get out of bed.
Your body is designed to sleep and rest more in winter, you have less food, so you have less ‘energy’ and therefore sleeping and resting is key.
However due to technology we have artificial lights to keep us awake longer, but this is not helping your circadian rhythm.
You see you not only have a 24 hour clock your ‘sleep and wake time’, but your body also has a season clock, with more rest time in winter and more play time in summer.
With the Bright retreat, I helped to educate the girls on how to nourish the body during change of season, how to embrace the crisp mornings, warm up the body by walking or jogging, strengthen the body with functional movement sessions, and then stretch out the body with yoga.
Once we completed yoga through the breathing exercises and savasana our bodies were in prime position to eat as our bodies were rested and now they can digest food optimally.
Unlike common situations we eat on the go, gulp our food and do not even taste the food.
Eating in these situations stresses the body, and therefore we can not digest, leading to gut health concerns, weight gain and stubborn weight loss.
The retreat also reflected on the resting as much as exercising. Learning to reward your body after exercise through recovery and nourishment. (Not punishing the body for eating something bad = eg: running or doing so many burpees for eating a cake etc).
Our rewarding included cold water therapy and cold thermogenesis, allowing the body to recover the muscles in the natural cold water river, and this also became a fat burner by tapping into the brown fat (good fat in the body).
We are all born with brown fat, that’s why babies and children don’t feel the cold like adults do. However as we rug up more and rug our children up as the saying goes ‘don’t use it – you lose it’ – we lose the ability to warm ourselves up because we lose so much brown fat.
We can build our brown fat back up by exercise and by cold thermogenesis (where you submerge in cold water – or simply have a cold shower. You can start by just ending your shower with cold water on your feet and hands, this makes the blood pump more and brown fat to work to help warm up your extremities. Try standing under the shower when you first turn on when it’s cold and see if you can handle it – remember it’s a free way to burn fat!.
The more brown fat you have – the more it ‘chews’ up your white fat (bad fat).
So our reward was after the run amongst Brights running trails was sitting in the river, to recover and burn more fat.
The retreat also offered therapeutic massages with recovery based intentions, helping to move the fascia – allowing perfect blood circulation to speed up the recovery as well, to help for the next days’ workout.
(Side note – I also incorporated foam rolling, great if you cannot get into a therapist for a massage and easy to do at home).
Also you couldn’t not embrace grounding in such a tree filled town, with our feet amongst the fallen leaves and yoga on the grass, outside, under the beautiful natural rays of the sun.
We nourished with non inflammatory foods (not causing a stress to the body), by indulging on whole foods without grains or dairy.
We had beautiful good fats such as, coconut milk, olives, avocados, nuts, butter, grass fed meats and coconut oil to help cognitive function and protection around nerves, cells and tendons.
Our protein source was grass fed beef cuts, salmon and chicken thighs along with plenty of free range eggs to keep amino acids (muscle repair) on point.
Our plant based foods were vibrant, full of fibre, minerals and vitamins, to help with bowel flow and hair, nail and skin growth.
I also explained the importance of rotating supplements to when your body needs them and to when to slow down to maintain your body.
With early nights the girls had wonderful rested sleep to be able to begin the next day refreshed and invigorated.
‘What a weekend, cant thank you enough @kf_fitness_healthcoach and not enough emojis to cover it all’ – Simone A
It was wonderful to help educate the girls on how our bodies were designed, how the hormones play a part in the daily operations of our bodies, how it changes as we get older, why we seem to get a bigger belly at times, but also the main take-away was to not only get them to learn to listen to their bodies, but to nurture their bodies, minds and soul.
We all need to take time out, to regroup, to recharge and to understand the season changes not only to nature around us, but within us.
Winter is nearly here and we are designed to add a couple of kilos on, to help protect our organs and to help survive winter – however these is the ‘right way’ to do this and the ‘not so right way’.
Once you accept and learn that this can occur (slight weight gain), and stop flogging your body, by making yourself get up early when you are dog tired, if you just LET GO, then your body cooperate with you.
Please our take away from this is to:
– LET GO, as the Autumn leaves fall – allow your body and mind to let go of unwanted stress.
– Eat foods within the right season, stop having high sugared foods as the days become shorter – try to eat before it gets dark.
– Rest more, it’s time to slow down a bit – listen to your body.
Here’s some testimonials from the Bright Retreat:
What a beautiful, inspirational, motivating, exhausting, relaxing, wonderful and happy fitness retreat weekend in Bright. Kez you’re a star! ⭐️ Amazing job organising and I can’t wait for the next one! – Meagan Y
What a weekend!! Refreshed my mind, body and spirit. Fresh air, running, walking, strength training, yoga, massage and spectacular food(I didn’t have to plan or cook). Every mother’s dream!! All while making some new friends and catching up with a friend from the past. – Tracey
The food prep/meal planning is something I can improve on that will not only be good for my health but will have a big impact on my stress levels. I need to think outside the square and remember I can have a number of items in the one meal like the breakfast smoothie bowl as well as a small amount of the savoury options.
Also I should do yoga – with the proper recovery after exercise (yoga/river/rolling) my body feels worked but not sore 🙂 – Simone A
Yes, this retreat was just what I thought it would be and was hoping for. it was a chance to revitalise my body and soul and that’s exactly what I got The workouts were good and the yoga was great and the massage was just an added benefit that was much needed. – Kerryn
There was a range of information provided that means I can start with some smaller steps – buying vitamins today. But also having a grain free weekend, and demonstrating that it can be satisfying and delicious, and easy to do, was a great idea.- Jo L
Loved it. Loved being able to stop and prop, and not worry about what to eat. Loved the fact I didn’t drive anywhere for two full days. LOVED the location. It was great to spend time with like-minded souls. – Bec T
Exceeded my expectations. I loved the structure of exercise, healthy eating and chill time incorporated together. – Sheridan
Thank you for your time, please share with friends and I’d love it if they subscribe to this newsletter/tips platform.
To your health
Kerrie
Professional Health, fitness and wellness coach.
