“Make hay while the sun shines.”

Not just great advice for farmers…

It’s a useful mantra for anyone wanting to build healthier habits too.

Why?

Everything is better in the summer:

• longer, lighter days
• hopefully better weather
• it’s easier and more fun to get out & about
• everywhere looks lovely
• there are more exercise & activity options available to us (think tennis, rounders, kickabouts, running, walking, canoeing, gardening, even spring cleaning!)
• we tend to eat a little lighter and have more of a focus on salads & colourful foods

What if we make the most of these excellent conditions and start now to build the habits that are going to make the autumn and winter months more bearable?

Or to see it from the other side… trying to establish healthy eating or movement habits when it’s cold, dark, raining and you’d rather be cosy at home is much more difficult that in the glorious (fingers crossed) summertime.

How can we be healthier in the summer?

If you want to build a walking habit, now is a great time to start. Use the light mornings, your lunch break, or the gorgeous evenings to get your steps up over the next few months. It’ll soon become such a natural part of your day that as the year goes on and the seasons change, you’ll want to find ways to keep it going, even if that means swapping to indoor exercise or walking with a torch and a woolly hat.

Or, if you’ve decided to increase your fruit and veg intake, it’s way easier to hit your 5-a-day (and more) with fruit on your breakfast and salad with lunch and dinner in summer. After three or four months of eating brilliantly, you’ll feel so great, you won’t want to revert back to beige come October, but can look forward to finding ways to keep it up – albeit maybe swapping salad for cooked veg, or having fruit on lovely comforting porridge instead if fridge-chilled overnight oats.

For fat loss, summer is a great time to make progress. Not because of any “beach body” nonsense, but simply because the daylight, the weather and the general optimism that is more abundant at this time of year make your efforts that little bit easier to enjoy.

Mix up your social activities so they better suit your fat loss goals: meet friends for a walk then a coffee rather than just for cake; spend time in the garden, the park, the countryside or the seaside; focus on foods that make you feel good – fresher, lighter, more varied than the winter rib-sticking stodge.

So, why not start right now?

Slap on the Factor 50, fill up your water bottle and get out there to make the most of this wonderful time of year – winter-you will thank you for it!