Episode 13: Why Winter Is the Best Time to Start Moving

Staying active in the winter is hard — the cold, the dark, the ice, the gravitational pull of the couch at 2:15 p.m. But that’s exactly why this season matters more than most.

In this episode, Josh breaks down why winter is actually the best time to start (or restart) your fitness habits. From preventing slips and falls, to building confidence, to fighting off the winter blues, to creating unbreakable habits that carry into spring — you’ll learn why a small dose of movement now sets you up for a much stronger, happier year.

You don’t need to do more.
 You just need to keep showing up.

Tune in for practical tips, a little Fitness Sherpa dry humor, and a reminder that winter doesn’t have to slow you down — in fact, it might be the season that strengthens you the most.

Transcript

Framing The Winter Challenge

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello, and welcome to another episode of the 1% better podcast with your host, Josh Williams. And I am so excited to be here, be talking into this mic. You're all having a fantastic day, week, month, wherever you are all at. Oh, I really got myself out of that one. But today I wanted to talk to you about the wintertime exercising and the benefits of it. Now, this came about. I was doing a run in a cold day, frigid day, a snowy day, and it it wasn't great. It wasn't a great run, but I got out. It's really difficult to be active when there's snow on the ground, ice on the ground, it's cold out. There's just so many barriers to get out and be active. I honestly am typically only active to do chores to clear the driveway, you know, things that might cause damage to my home, like cutting the roof, you know, carrying groceries, things like that. My girls dragged me outside. Maybe I'll go out for a walk and bundle up. But running is really one of the very few probably outdoor activities I do or try to do as much as possible in the winter, as much as I don't enjoy running. Because I don't I don't do other sports like you know, skiing or anything like that, or ice skating, you know, snowshoeing, this, this, and that. I might someday, but I don't. So it's hard. It's it's challenging to get out and be active. And that's why you really need to double down more on finding ways to be active. And that's why some years are so hard when we have all these treats, these comfort foods we want. They want the warm, thick foods like pies and you know, shepherds' pies, doesn't know meat pies, whatever, thick soups, creamy soups, things like that, biscuits. Yeah, I love a good biscuit. Um so that's what I wanted to talk about today is the winter time, I would argue is even more important time of year to get out and be active and start strength training and start doing something. So that's what I really want to talk about about today, because we all know that when the sun starts coming down at like 2:15 p.m. in the afternoon, you know, there's a there's a strong gravitational pull uh to your couch, and then like a a bug to the light, our our eyes drift up into the beautiful gaze of the telephone television screen. So so a couple myths, just a couple things to point out. A lot of times people might say winter isn't a good time to start. That is very common. There's a lot of reasons to not start in winter, and none of them are good, it's just a little bit harder. So most people will think, oh, I'll wait till spring. Like, spring is the giant Monday of life. You know what I mean? We had a rough weekend, I'll start again on Monday. Spring is the Monday of our year, and so we don't want to wait till spring. We want to get going now. There is so much to be gained if we start now. You know, if we start working on our strength, start working on our movement now, it's gonna be huge when we get to the spring. And again, at the end of the day, anything we do, it's all about consistency over intensity, especially right now in this year. So don't wait to start, don't wait to start. Our life is too short to keep on waiting for the opportune time. It's never opportune. So why not start at the least opportune time? Because it's gonna build resilience. And another big reason why to start now, this is important again for our 50, 60 plus crowd, but you know, for anybody, just building strength is prevention. And we know slip and fall risk is high, poor footing, uneven, you know, ice, you know, ice covered with snow. And we fall prevention is just huge. The more strength we can have, the more balance, the stability, the mobility, the quickness, the agility that we can have to handle that situation, the better. You know, strengthening some ways is like your your armor, it protects you. Balance, working on that is going to decrease risk of fall being able to handle uneven terrain. And so, you know, last year, you know, you can't prevent all falls, but last year my wife had a soap and fall in our in our garage. Some some water kind of leaked in or ice built up and it kind of leaked in, was able to go through the door, and it created this nice, beautiful, slick ice rink on our nice concrete. And uh, she had a soap and fall, and you know, she didn't like break anything. She fell right on our on her on her butt, but it did jar her enough to to go through a concussion pretty severely. And you know, you know, thankfully, she didn't break anything. She's been training, uh working out, and she was able to you know come back quicker because of that. So we're not able to prevent everything, but again, strength also just allows us to, if this happens, that we're able to come back faster and get back going, going on. So the reason number two, confidence to move through life. This is this is huge. So there's a big thing in winter hesitation, it's real. You know, it's like, do I want to go out? Do I want to go walk? Do I do I can I make it to the grocery, you know, carry my groceries in safely without something falling? Can I do get to the mailbox? You know, can I traverse, you know, even traveling out of state? And so having this this strength, this confidence that where you're not making decisions solely on just the the conditions outside is huge. So strength builds confidence. The stronger you are, the more balance you have, the more that you've proven to yourself in a safe environment, like a gym, working with a coach, that you are capable, the more that you will do, the more you can enjoy. And so, you know, really don't you don't want you know winter activities really dictated by by fear of movement. We really want to prevent that as much as possible. And you know, the other bonus is training now, like hey, we might be going someplace warm in February or March. And we want to be able to enjoy that. We want to be able to move and actually we don't want to worry about what the sidewalk conditions are or how many layers I need to put on. We want to be able to enjoy that experience when we get there. So that's another reason to start now. Another one is winter is lonely, it's a real thing. It gets dark early, it's easy to be alone, easy to go to bed early, sleep in late, whatever. Uh, it's a real thing. Lack of lack of sunlight. And one of the big things of getting joining a community is working out with other people that are smiling at you, conversing, laughing, and just giving you that boost of energy to go on out into the day because of that. So finding that community that kind of fights the winner blues with you is is huge, is huge in fighting kind of that seasonal depression. It doesn't fix everything, but it plays a huge part just being around other people. Other people too that have a growth mindset and that are looking forward and they're talking positive and not you know dragging you down where you might have that in other environments. So number four, winter habits really carry the most weight. You know, if you can start a habit in the wintertime and carry it through the spring, I mean it's darn near unbreakable. I started my marathon training in the winter. Why? I hate running, but I knew if I could consistently run a handful of times a week during the winter, I was going to be able to do that when there was so much more motivation and ease, and ease. Like when I go out and run in the winter, I have to put on leggings, put on a thermal layer, put on another layer, put on, you know, pants after that, you know, hats, you know, scarf, maybe, maybe gloves. Uh it's it's a lot versus like in the summertime, just put some shoes on, you know, make sure I have some shorts and a shirt and maybe a hat for sunburn, and I'm good to go. Super easy. And so that's another benefit. If we start that routine now where it's dark out, it's cold out, I gotta start the car and I gotta go to the gym, it's gonna be so much easier in the springtime. When if you're in early morning and that sun starts coming up at like 4 a.m. or 4 30, oh man, feels so good. So again, that's probably unique. But, anyways, if you can do it in the winter time, it's so much easier. Just that sunlight and happiness just gives you so much energy to keep going as well. So, again, hard seasons create strong habits is a line I like to use. Another one, again, from a metabolic effect, mobility, you know, aging overall, movement keeps the joints warm and flexible. So, again, increasing that body temperature is gonna help keep them going, feeling better, strength improves glucose control. So, you know, holiday eating and sugar, working out, staying active is gonna really, really help with that blood glucose. Again, muscle accelerates. Sorry, the loss of muscle accelerates as we get older. And so being sedentary and active is just gonna speed that up. With the body, you can say if you if you don't use it, you lose it. The body is all about efficiency, it is gonna put its resources to what it needs to be that it that it's using, and so if we're not moving, it's gonna start taking away muscle, it's gonna start taking away, putting that towards other resources, and so we want to build that foundation now and not get in this double dipping of I'm not moving, I'm not doing anything, I'm not eating healthy. Instead, if I can reverse that a little bit to I'm making more conscious eating decisions and I'm moving a little bit, it's gonna set you up so much more. So, you know, again, some just practical tips. Again, minimal dose is what we're going for, minimal dose. If you're able to get in two times a week, maybe even three times a week of strength training, oh man, you're gonna be in such a great uh position to feel great for the spring. And you know, it if you're again you're going on a vacation, all that twice a week, if you're doing twice a week, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, you're gonna see a huge difference. If you're getting out a couple times for a walk on those nicer days, huge. And if you have to go walk in a mall or someplace, great, whatever. But it's it's getting out for those things again. Twice a week strength training, you know, if each day I can get out for a 15 to 30 minute walk, that it that is that is really, really good. So again, minimal dose doesn't take a lot. And if you're someone that's brand new to all this, once a week, once a week working out, it is gonna make a difference if you have not been doing anything. So again, you know, I to kind of say this as a like winner shows us who we are, it strips away the convenience, which means every walk, every lift, every run becomes meaningful. You don't need to do more, you just need to keep showing up. And so just get started. Really, it's so so true. Winter is hard, it strips away the convenience, just keep showing up. And if you need help with that, that is what I'm here for. That's what spurling fitness is for. It's for helping you, meeting you where you're at, providing that roadmap, being your Sherpa on your fitness journey, and getting you from point A to point B to C to D, wherever you need to go. We are here along the way. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you got some nuggets out of it, or just a boost of like, hey, I can do this. You know, I'm not gonna let this be a winter where I just kind of wait to the spring, but I'm actually gonna start feeling better, moving better, and you know, not letting time slip away. Time, we don't have a lot of it, and we need to take advantage of it, and we want those moments to be our best moments. Or sorry, we want as many good moments as we can. And, you know, the healthier we are, the more that we can do that, the more freedom we can have. And again, that's it. I'll stop talking. I'm starting to ramble. So have a wonderful day. I hope it helped. Talk to you soon, and then thank you all so much.