How To Get Back On Track by Baraa El Sabbagh, Personal Trainer & Sports Nutritionist in Dubai

Well, it happened. After almost 10 months of the pandemic, I got corona back in January. But silver lining: What I’m about to share were true, valuable lessons I came across during my 2 weeks at home. These lessons honestly helped me, which I hope will do the same for you regardless of the reason you had to take a break from working out or eating healthy. 

I realized when I was sick that I don’t remember the last time I actually took 2 weeks, let alone ONE, full week of training off. I did go through the multiple 2020 lockdowns just like all of us, but I was hustling the entire time between live workouts that I was doing for fun or outdoor HIIT cardio when the gyms were closed. By the way, as always, if you’d like to listen to the podcast episode on how to get back on track, you can find it right here. 

Staying Active In Any Way

If I wasn’t allowed to go outside, you’d find me getting my steps in by going up and down the 13 story staircase in my building. Yep, I wasn’t messing around. Then January 2021 came along, corona hit, and things kind of came to a screeching halt. I’ve never been forced to actually sit on my butt for 14 whole days! 

I’m sure even if someone wasn’t in the fitness industry, they’d have a difficult time doing this as well. It’s not really human nature to stay put, we always feel like we have to be moving, doing errands, organizing, packing, unpacking, cooking, cleaning, whatever it is, we’re always doing some type of movement and having that come to a stop feels very strange. 

Gloomy Thoughts During 2 Weeks of Covid

• Do I even know how to squat anymore?

• I lost the form in my quads.

• Wow, muscle definition goes away quickly!

• Damn, I'm going to be sore when I get back to working out, like really sore.

Logical Thoughts That Followed

• It’s natural for me to lose definition because I'm not sweating it out. 

• After a week of putting the work in at the gym, I'll be back on track. 

• & of course, I had the revolutionary thought of we truly are supposed to stay home when we’re sick, we’ve been doing it wrong all along by not properly resting when we’d get the common cold or flu. This is a good reset! 

The point is, these thoughts will always come and go. It’s okay to sit with them a bit even if they’re uncomfortable. Journal it out, talk it out, rant about it because you’re completely allowed to feel angry about them. BUT try to find the one little positive outcome from taking a break this long, whatever your situation may be, covid or not. 

What You Need To Do First

I know you think it seems hopeless, very hard, or nearly impossible to get back on track, but it’s not! I can confidently tell you your butt muscles are still there, even if you think you forgot how they function. Your general strength and that fire to get healthy and fit is STILL there. To bring some science into it, here’s what you need to know about muscle loss: 

• You lose half your strength in the time you gained it. That means, if you increase your strength by 20% in 4 weeks, then you will lose 10% of that gained strength if you don’t train in the next 4 weeks. 
• If you continue not to train, then you will lose all 20% of strength in a total of 8 weeks.

Goals & First Step

So what’s your first step back to training going to be? You don’t want to just say you’re going to start training, without a plan or aim in mind. You want to set a goal at this point. But there are 3 things I want your goal to have to make it a good and achievable one. Think of a goal that’s specific, exciting, and one with a strong reason behind it. 

So as an example of how specific I want you to go, I’ll tell you about my process: 

I want to be able to do 5 unassisted pull ups in 2 months, I’ll do this by doing a pull up focused workout 2-3 times per week. This makes it a specific goal. 

Because in my opinion nothing is sexier than a woman jumping up on the pull up bar and repping a few pull ups. This makes it an exciting goal. 

The reason I chose this as my goal is because pull ups to me, signify strength. Plus it’s a fun challenge! 

So after establishing the goal, I dive a little deeper: What’s the first step I need to do to make it happen? Hire a trainer? Look up a pull-up focused program? Let’s say I choose to hire a trainer, great, I ask a friend and she recommends someone. I checked out this trainer's account, I like him or her, fabulous. Next step, contact trainer, set up a time, send payment, bam, DONE. 

To recap: I set a goal, it had all the 3 elements to make it a good one, and I dove into all the steps I needed to do to make it happen. 

How To Set Up Your Own Goal

Ask yourself the following questions: 

1. What do you want to do? 
2. How many times per week are you willing to dedicate to it?
3. How much time are you spending on it each session?
4. Why do you want to achieve this goal? 
5. What makes it exciting to you? (if it’s not exciting, reevaluate) 
6. By when do you want to achieve this goal?

If you’re a planner like me, you probably already took out a pen and started writing down these questions. Good for you! It’s been proven that you’re 67% more likely to achieve a goal by writing it down. 

Gradually Easing Into It

via GIPHY

If you’re reading this after recovering from covid, slow down there tiger. I want you to hear this next part cause it’s important! There haven't been any clear rules or exact guide on getting back to exercise after getting the virus. All we can do is gradually ease ourselves back into it as safely and carefully as possible. 

There are tons of accounts out there to help us, and I found my favorite explanation on Dr Hazel Wallace’s account. She tells us that in most cases, people recovering from a mild or moderate case of corona can get back to working out a week after having no symptoms. But if you were hospitalized or had any type of breathing or heart complications, then you’d need to talk to your doctor and ask when it's a good idea to get back to (or start) working out.

Ready To Train Again After Covid

So you’re ready to get back to working out, whether it’s after covid, any other type of illness or just took a break because you haven’t been in the mood to train. I want you to remember: Easing into exercise looks different for each person. The first week you could start with stretching, breathing and balance exercises. The next week, you could be comfortable doing low intensity movements like walking or strength yoga. By the third week you might want to try moderately intense activities like cycling, swimming or jogging or you might want to dive right into circuits and strength training. 

If it works for you, great. If not, go easy on yourself. It’s not a race! And you don’t want to burn out so soon after returning to exercise. I gotta reiterate: This journey must be personalized to YOU.

One of the major things to keep in mind is whatever intensity you decide to jump into, make sure you stretch, recover & drink lots of water.

An Inspiring Story About Getting Back To Training

My brother, who is the occasional gym goer, skipped gym for a whole year. When my husband and I visited him in the US, he became compelled by our discipline of working out 5 times a week, each time at 11 am, even while we were on vacation. On one of the days, he decided to just come along and workout.  

I loved that, because he’s usually the “I’ll wait till Monday” or “No actually i’ll wait for a Monday that aligns with being the 1st of the month”. See what I mean? The stars have to align just right for him to start something. 

So for the first time, my brother let go of that mindset and ended up joining our workouts and didn’t miss a single one while we were there. And guess what? Just 2 weeks into the training, he was dumbbell pressing 40 kg dumbbells. If you’re not sure what that means, it’s pretty impressive and quick progress. All because he didn’t overthink starting, he just started! 

Advice To Get Back On Track

My advice to you would be not to overthink it too, you might be one of those that progresses and gets in the groove of working out just as quickly. Respect your body and allow yourself to progress as you need to without judgement and being harsh on yourself. But you want to know something cool? YOU are already on the right track. Yep, simply by reading this blog. 

Want to know another cool thing? My brother is still working out long after we left, getting stronger and crushing his goals with 10 kg below his starting weight. Proving that all he needed to do was start - not to start on the first of January or precisely 2 months before the summer. Try it out! Pick today, even if it’s a random date like April 13th. 

My Own Personalized Training Journey 

A week into recovering from covid, I started my game plan of getting back into training. The plan was to do a leg day plus a spinning class to get my cardio in… I wanted to do both on the first day back! I was just so excited to be out of lockdown that I forgot my own advice about easing back into it. 

Thankfully, my rational side stepped in and told me “girl, take it slow”.  So I changed up my plan to still include leg training, followed by walking, the perfect low-impact cardio activity. The next day, I did an upper body workout and another round of passive cardio. I hadn’t even met with the pull up trainer I told you about yet. 

All I was doing was getting my body used to training after it had been sitting and resting for 2 weeks. This was what it was going to take for me to feel stronger and myself again before I started on my pull up goal. This was my pace, which could be the same as yours. The point is to try and go with what makes you comfortable. 

How To Start Meal Prep Again

Same thing applies with nutrition. Set a goal there, what’s something exciting to you that you want to do? How does nutrition play into it? Do you want to be on a calorie deficit or calorie surplus & for how long? Do you want to limit snacking? How about alcohol? Do you want to start meal prepping ahead of time?

Every nutrition goal is unique and hopefully with these tips, you’ll be able to find your way there without any roadblocks or obstacles. Assess what you want to do, how you want to do it, and figure out what is the first action you need to take to make it happen. 

My Favorite Ways To Get Back On Track

via GIPHY

To summarize: 

1. Take a deep breath and know that it won’t be difficult to get back on track 
2. Set an exciting, specific, and a goal with a good reason why behind it, for both training and nutrition
3. Ask yourself, what is the first step I need to take to make these goals happen? 
4. & remember… done is better than perfect! 

Ready for the final tip?

I want you to know that setbacks happen for many reasons, whether it’s because you become sick or you simply got bored of your old routine. The only way to keep going with your goals is by embedding discipline. 

Day in and day out, repeat the habit, show up, even if sometimes you end up warming up for 30 minutes because you’re procrastinating, that’s ok. Do it. This is how habits stick. & conveniently, it’s how you see results. It could be tough, but so are you. Go get ‘em!