Lazy Sundays
Ahhhh Sundays!. What can I say, nothing can beat them. Whether it’s the bliss of not setting an alarm, or the stillness in the mind where there’s nothing to do for what seems like an eternity in the morning. It’s a day where sleeping in until all hours is perfectly acceptable and the laziness is guilt free ………
or so we’re are led to believe. You see like everything there is a downside.
While lounging around like a cat and trying to avoid activities at all costs can be amazing, unfortunately there could be a huge price to pay in terms of your diet.
Take Jane for example. She works the 9-5 grind with a constant buzzing of her mobile. The days are long, but every Friday, that beautiful weekend comes into sight and all Jane can think of is how much she is going to starfish the bed. Jane absolutely loves her Sundays. It usually consists of her catching up on her chores piled from the previous Sundays while making a nice dinner catching up on the soaps or Netflix simultaneously.
The Inner Sloth
It is not uncommon for Jane to sleep in until 12 or 1pm on a Sunday and can spend the day binging on Netflix.
After the 6th episode of Narcos it is now 2am and Pablo Escobar is still not found- it’s time for bed. It’s so late now that Jane skips everything and just heads straight to bed.
8:30am rolls around the following Monday. The torturous alarm that was snoozed 5 times is what brings a zombie like Jane to some sort of life on Monday morning.
She’s now in a rush from oversleeping- no time for breakfast, Jane just makes a quick coffee and she’s out the door to work.
Lunch rolls around Jane didn’t have time to prepare anything so she’s forced to eat out. She’s on her diet so tries her best with a chicken salad.
5′ O clock at last comes by. Jane leaves for the gym only to remember she forgot to pack. Today she’ll give it a miss just this “one time”, besides she’s exhausted any way so in her mind there would be no point in training anyway.
Jane comes home starving, tired and guilty that she hasn’t anything she would like to get done. She’s sits down to watch the t.v at last. A nice Advertisement for “Just eat” comes on the t.v. She prepared nothing the night before and she’s too tired to cook……..
Her favourite chinese is on the way.
It’s midnight and now Jane is so tired from work it’s time to go to bed.
Tuesday inevitably comes and Jane is anxious. Nothing was complete from her to-do list on Monday and she realizes that she has an important project due today. Training of course is the thing that takes the hit as she stays back late to complete the project.
Wednesday and Jane wakes up with just enough time to make an espresso. No time for breakfast she grabs a bagel in work and so tired from the lack of sleep the previous nights, her productivity and mood are at an all time low.
The knock-on effect
What happened to Jane is a very common occurrence. Most people can feel so tired during the week that the weekend is the only respite. Unfortunately Jane like most of us takes this to the extreme. We end up doing absolutely nothing on the Sunday with no preparation in mind. This has a big knock on effect for the rest of the week. Jane is just completely reacting to what unfolds in front of her.
She needs to buy lunches, she’s exhausted,
she’s missing workouts.
She gets home and has nothing prepared and needs to order some sort of take way. The whole time she is just putting out fires as the day goes by moving from task to task.
This builds though. This anxiety from reacting to everything carries for the whole week. That one night of over indulgence and laziness on a Sunday has big repercussions for the rest of the week. .
Like a tsunami the week can come and completely sweep us out from under our feet and all of a sudden it’s Friday night and we are exhausted not achieving much of anything but still feeling like we deserve that drink. In this instance, a week can fly by and Jane might still not have trained and might still be eating crap.
Fail to prepare prepare to fail
Sound familiar? Jane is not unlike most of us. We can all take liberties on our Sundays but what what happens afterwards means it is crucial that we have some sort of plan or some small preparation to keep us in check come Monday.
MISE EN PLACE
Preparation before Monday starts can make or break our week in terms diet and exercise. Mise en Place is a term stolen straight from chefs. It literally means to put in place. If you think of all the processes a chef must be on top of is incredible.
In a Michelin star restaurant they could literally be preparing hundreds of meals, orchestrating teams of cooks, moving from task to task effortlessly. Just like our Sunday however, one spoilt or unprepared ingredient can throw a whole dish out of whack and lead to ruined meals, unhappy customers and poor reviews.
For a chef, being in some sort of flow or control is key. For this reason preparation is vital. For a chef, this could be having all the cooking utensils in eyes view or placing them in some sort of order for each meal so the cooking process flows seamlessly. It could be having all the ingredients ready from meal to meal. Here’s a cool video of a busy chef in action
What if we could add something similar that could help us prepare for a healthy week ahead. Instead of just surviving the week, why don’t we attack it and avoid the weekend retreat and Sunday sloth attack
The Daily Mise
This is where the Daily Mise comes in. If preparation is key to keeping our healthy lifestyles in check then what can we do.
The daily Mise is a nightly checklist that sets you up for the day. There’s a saying called “embrace the day” that chefs use where instead of reacting anxiously to every task we are flowing from healthy meal to healthy meal or from work to training sessions.
You can create your own daily mise/checklist yourself. You should set aside no more than 30 mins every night at the same time and ask your self the following things:
- Top 3 fitness priorities for tomorrow
- What tasks did I not complete today?
- Do I have my training gear ready for tomorrow?
- Do I know what i’m eating for breakfast tomorrow?
- Do I know what I’m eating for dinner tomorrow?
- What healthy snacks have I got prepared for tomorrow
- What are the main things that will stop me from my diet and training tomorrow? how will I overcome them.
You can also download your own Daily Mise checklist here that you can print out for yourself to follow every night
The main idea of the daily Mise is to set you up for success. Rather than rushing around in the mornings you can have a clear head knowing that everything is ready and your health plans can stay in check. In the case of Jane we can see how the daily MIse may have made a huge difference
Jane’s Sunday Daily Mise
- Top 3 Fitness Priorities tomorrow
- Gym tomorrow
- Make healthy smoothie
- Bring own lunch into work
- What Tasks did I not complete today?
Project for work is due Tuesday that I didn’t complete Friday
- Do I have training gear ready tomorrow?
No
- Do I know what i’m eating for breakfast tomorrow?
No
- Do I know what I’m eating for dinner tomorrow?
no
- What healthy snacks have I got prepared for tomorrow
nothing
- What are the main things that will stop me from my diet and training tomorrow? how will I overcome them.
- Too tired for training
- None of the above prepared which means i’ll most likely need to eat out
After completing her daily Mise, Jane realises she has no breakfast ready, she quickly grabs oats and pours some milk with fruit…. Over night oats and healthy breakfast done just need to be grabbed from the fridge.
No Lunch?? There’s some microwave uncle ben’s vegetable rice and some leftover chicken from dinner. perfect.
No dinner ready? checks the freezer and there’s some beef and baked potato. Dinner is secure.
No gear ready for the gym….. grabs workout runners and t shirt and throws them straight into the car in the passenger side so she doesn’t need to be rushing around in the morning looking for gear.
Looking forward she realises it’s pretty late and she might not get much sleep. She also realises she still has that project due for Tuesday which might affect whether she goes the gym or not. She googles her favourite home workout and has that as a back up just incase.
In the previous case a lazy Sunday caused a ruined week which we all experience, leading us to determine “next week i’ll be better” while we repeat the process over and over and again. The daily Mise is simple and starts our week on the right foot.
Extra Tips
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if 30 mins is too much time, try 15 minutes and see how much you can accomplish in that time
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Try to perform the Mise everyday at the same time to create a consistent habit. Use reminder apps such as Wunderlist and Google calendar to set daily reminders.
So there you go guys. The weekend is a time for relaxing and enjoying ourselves. The daily Mise can make sure we don’t take this too far and ensures we start the week off on the right foot regarding our fitness. If you like learn how simple productivity tools can make a huge difference to fitness and your goals then you’ll love my article on carbs and willpower or my most recent one on Nudges.
You can also learn about Mise en Place from the book “Work clean: The life changing power of Mise-en-Place to organize your life, work and mind” by Dan Charnas
One last thing. If you managed to make it to the end thanks a million. If you like more of this type of fitness help a share and a a like on Facebook would be so appreciated because it helps the article get more views.
Until Next time. Kurtis