A few days ago we talked about how difficult it can be to change the habits we have or start with new ones. They are behaviors that live with us and that, although sometimes we do not realize it, we carry out automatically, even if they do not give us any benefits (or, at worst, harm us).

These habits or hobbies are very common in many of us: the first step to change that bad habit you have is to identify and recognize it. Here are nine of those bad habits that can end up paying us : we are in time to correct them!

Move alone when you go to the gym

If we take account of it, it is very possible that at the end of the day we will spend more hours sitting around: we go to work by car or public transport, we arrive and sit at our post (and nobody moves us from there), we return home and We sit on the couch watching TV … The human body is designed for us to move , and we do so much less than we should.

It’s not a question of hitting a bout of training for two hours a day and spending the rest of the day moving as little as possible: it ‘s important that we stay active the longer the better . An hour at the gym is a small part of your day: integrate physical activity as long as you can.

Inadequate hydration: What do you drink and how much do you drink?

It is not enough to hydrate us more than to do less is inappropriate: each person is different and will require a different intake of liquids depending on their physical characteristics (metabolism, weight) and also depending on the physical activity that they do (we will need more fluid intake if We are athletes). The climate, obviously, also influences the need to hydrate us.

But something perhaps more important is what we hydrate ourselves with: the main source of hydration in our diet must be water. There are many people with the excuse that water does not know to walk (normal, because it is insipid) are hydrated with soft drinks or juices, thus contributing to your body a lot of sugars or other substances that do not interest us.

The isotonic drinks in athletes are only required if we make a long – term training and good intensity. The energy drinks, usually loaded with sugar, are not recommended.

Do you finish training and do you go home? Do not forget the stretches

Every day in all the gyms we find people who, as they finish their training or their collective class, go out scopes to the locker room, pick up their things and go home. What about stretching? We should be aware that taking a few minutes to stretch properly is part of a complete exercise routine: it is not something optional that we can or can not do.

Dedicating about 10 minutes to stretch helps us to calm down after having demanded an effort to our body and helps us to facilitate muscle recovery. You can do it yourself, ask a partner to help you, use a foam roller or foam roller … but remember to always do them!

Do not read nutritional labels of what you buy

The food industry is designed to sell, not to make it easier for us to choose healthy and healthy foods. That’s why the processed products have boxes or containers of bright colors with big advertising claims like “0% fat”, “light” or “low calorie”. But if you do not read the nutritional labels and the ingredient listings you will not really know what you are bringing into your mouth.

A product may well be advertised as “0% fat” and still contain crazy amounts of sugar. The problem is that if we do not bother to look for the nutritional label and read it we are only going to be left with that “0% fat” that we see with huge letters on the front of the product in question.

Investing a little time in learning to read labels, or better yet, basing our food on food instead of products, is a good habit that we can implement in our day to day.

“One more chapter and I go to bed”: You sleep little and bad

Who has not said that phrase more than once? You are hooked on a series or a book and when you want to realize it is three in the morning and you have to get up at seven to go to work and then to train. Or you’ve been working late. Or you’ve been out there. The fact is that we usually sacrifice the hours of sleep to be able to dedicate them to other things.

We underestimate the power of rest, and not only as athletes, where even more is needed. Sleeping between seven and eight hours a day (there is no fixed figure, it will depend on each person) is vital for the recovery of our muscles and different systems of our body, to rest our minds and to rise as new and with energy next morning.

“I eat everything without fat”, but in fact, fats are necessary

The 1990s were the golden age of “everything without fat” because “fat fat”. Perhaps because we associate the word “fats” as a macro nutrient with that other fat that we accumulate in our body, this macro has always had a negative connotation, and it is very difficult to understand that this is not quite so.

Fats (we call them lipids to distinguish them from the fatty tissue of our body) have vital functions in our body : fats are energy source and reserve, protect organs, form part of the cell membrane, regulate our hormones … Fats or lipids are necessary for us: we just have to learn to choose the right ones.

You spend a lot of time sitting (and above, in bad position)

You get up in the morning, have breakfast, sit in the car or on public transport to get to work. You arrive at the office and you spend about four hours sitting. You go out to eat and obviously you sit down. You go back to work: another four hours sitting. You sit back on the bus to go home. “I’m going to see my favorite series,” he said as he lay down on the couch. This is the daily routine of many people.

Not only do we sit for a long time, but we also sit down. Maybe the first five or ten minutes we are aware of our position : we try to support the back in the back of the chair, to keep us upright, to support our feet on the ground … But soon we are “running” Chair, lie down on the couch or end up with contortionist poses in front of the computer.

Being aware of our position while we are concentrating on work or doing other things is not easy: that is why it is important that we remember it every now and then . Many of the quantitative bracelets give you a warning to get you out of the chair: it’s not just for you to move, it’s also for you to be more aware of your posture when you sit down again.

“I did not eat anything before or after training, so I lose weight”

Whenever we talk about diet we look a lot at certain meals of the day like breakfast or dinner, when it is possible that the most important intakes for a person doing sports are the pre and post-workout.

Depending on the exercise you are going to do, what you eat before you train is very important : unless you are accustomed to fasting (which is not bad if your body responds well), you will perform better if you fill your Energy before training. If you are going to do a small intake, make it thirty minutes before you train; If it is a main meal of the day, at least two hours before to be able to do the digestion.

And what about post-workout? We know that the anabolic window stays open much more than half an hour long thought, but it is important that sooner or later replenish the energy you have spent and facilitate the repair of fibers. You do not need to take the tupper to the gym locker, but do not skip the after-training meal .

Weekend mad

You work hard in the gym from Monday to Friday, you take the diet impeccably, you sleep and rest everything you need; But the weekend is coming and … it’s so messy! I do not move from the couch because, hey, I’ve earned it. Pizza with friends because, well, I made the food trap this afternoon, but how am I going to fail? Come on, it’s Saturday night and for three or four drinks nothing happens, you have to have fun.

Does it ring you? Well, it is much more habitual than it seems. That it is weekend we do not give license to throw by the toilet all the efforts of the week. If we take fitness as a lifestyle (rather than a means to get to the body we want) we will surely make healthier choices also over the weekend.

Yes, the weekend is to enjoy it, but with a head. We can fix during those days our cheat meal or food trap, but that does not become “cheating weekend”.