5 Workout Habits You Need to Add to Your Fall Fitness Routine

Changing your fall fitness routine is sometimes just as necessary as changing up your fall wardrobe to accommodate to the chilly sweater-weather. Give your waistline some much needed love this fall with a bit of routine revamping to ensure you continue to see weight loss results and stay on track with your weight loss goals.

It’s important to change up your workout habits because hitting weight loss plateaus is all too real. When you become accustomed to the same treadmill workouts, your mind and body are undoubtedly screaming at you to try something new. By switching up your fitness routine, you can make those workouts more mentally stimulating and physically effective.

Incorporate these five healthy habits into your fall fitness routine for weight loss success:

1. Try Trail Running.

Ditch your gym, treadmill and the other monotonous machines and hit the great outdoors for some rough, yet thrilling terrain. Trail running has become pretty popular for many reasons— including it being exciting and free!

Go to the woods, a meadow or your local park and hit the trails with this freestyle run. According to Runner’s World, running on trails is better for your body since you are running on a softer surface—therefore, your body doesn’t absorb as much impact as it would on the pavement. This workout can be as intense or as mild as you want it to be depending on what grounds you’re covering and how fast you’re going.

According to Women’s Health, running on uneven surfaces can be fun for your mind—providing a great escape while you experience nature all around you. The unpredictability of the terrain is what helps work and tone different muscles in your body, so feel free to make the run a little creative to boost the results! Enjoy the beauty of the outdoors around you, and focus on your movements rather than your speed with this fun run.

2. Try Strength Training.

According to Harvard Medical School, numerous studies show that strength training is great for weight loss because you burn more calories as you build your muscle. As you continue to tone those muscles, you will increase your metabolic rate. Not only will strength training help tone your body, but it helps you stay overall healthier!

Start small with adding things such as push-ups, lunges, jump squats and mountain climbers into your fitness routine, which are all good and mild strength training practices you can do for free at home. You can work your way up to the bigger stuff and decide if you ever want to move to weights.

Strength training will help you burn more calories, but it also helps strengthen your bones and slow bone loss as several studies have shown. Strength training makes you stronger from the inside out and should be something you consider adding to your weekly workouts. It’s free, it’s easy and the benefits could be just what you need to amp up your weight loss diet results.

3. Do Yoga on Rest Days.

If you spent most of your summer doing high-intensity workouts, taking a rest may be a good idea. With highly rigorous activities comes injury and risk of burning out your body. To really help your body recover and prepare for the next workout, you need to take rest days to ensure recovery can happen, according to The Active Times. If you’re already feeling restless, doing yoga can also help your body relax, stretch and renew itself.

Yoga helps promote the mind-body experience so you can rest, relax and rejuvenate. On days when you aren’t working out, your body needs time to repair and rebuild bones, nerves and connective tissues so you can be fully ready for the next intense workout. Yoga can help you achieve balance and mindfulness while keeping your body active. According to Prevention, gentle yoga can help promote movement when you are on a rest day. Remember, you’re still burning calories when your body is recovering.

4. Wake Up Earlier.

Saying goodbye to those long summer days can be hard, but you can still do your best to take advantage of the light this fall. According to Harvard School of Public Health, studies have shown that waking up earlier is better for your health and wellbeing —AND those who get a solid eight hours of sleep have less risk of obesity.

Waking up earlier also gives you time to eat breakfast, since skipping meals is just as bad for your metabolism and internal clock as it is for your hunger. With extra time in the morning, you can do some cardio or even some easy at-home strength training before heading out the door for the day. Working out in the morning also helps to jumpstart your metabolism and helps you to continuously burn calories all day long—more so than if you had rolled out of bed, missed your morning meal and left in a hurry!

5. Try New Gym Classes.

To avoid a staggering weight loss plateau, change up your normal fitness routine and try something new! Choosing new workout classes is not only fun and interesting, but it can give you a chance to possibly find something new you love that works for your lifestyle.

Incorporating new workouts into your fitness routine can also help to give your metabolism a boost from the summer workout slumber. According to Women’s Health, forcing your body and muscles to try new movements and activities can also allow you to work new parts of your body—which helps to promote weight loss and muscle toning in different areas. Keep your mind and body interested and join your friend for that new water yoga class, or sign up for a trial of virtual boxing online. Whatever you choose to do, continue to switch up those workouts, and you’ll be certain to find fitness satisfaction in no time!

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