4 Reasons Fitness Retreats for Moms are Therapeutic

If you’re one of the 94% of women who own a smartphone then you may already be prone to nomophobia, also known as no-mobile-phone-phobia. Our phones are so closely linked to our lives, that it’s hard to disconnect them from the hip. Oh sure, you might unplug or go off the grid when going on vacation. However, as a busy working mother, how much do you ‘walk this back’ and end up re-syncing with your cell phone or tablet anyway? It happens all the time. Even on holiday or girls’ night. Our mobile devices are so much more than phone calls nowadays – they’re links to our lives. Email. Texts. Social Media. Even home security and entertainment… it all lives in our hands now. The problem is this,… that little black box? It’s NOT our lives. And too often we see that our actual sense of connection is gradually diminished as we sacrifice more meaningful relationship interactions for the instantaneous thrill of noisy digital icons masquerading as real communication with alerts of all kinds.

These become such habitual actions, they can even start to affect how well we take care of ourselves. This faux reality in digital space is no reality to hang on to when you consider winding down for a while and actually taking the time to reconnect with your own body and mind. A professional fitness ‘farm’ helps get you away from technology for a while to focus more on your health in a private, distraction-free environment, where the connections you make have nothing to do with the Wi-Fi.

This issue has become such a hotbed, that Huffington Post wrote a piece on the health aspects of unplugging. They featured statistics showing just how much technology disrupts our life. It can affect sleep patterns and impede mental tasks. As a result, this snowballs into a collection of health issues and affects your metabolism on top of it. And we all know that soon after the onset of these minor irritants, it leads to overeating or taking time to catch up on sleep rather than exercising… or even worse yet, simply not sleeping enough. All of which further slow down your body chemistry, cause inflammation, and (in general) make your body’s systems slow down so that you’re no longer burning calories efficiently.

As much as we moms might hate to admit it, sometimes we have to shock our body into resetting itself so we can finally end all those bad health habits we can’t seem to quit. Over the years, many authors (and mom bloggers) have debated exactly how to do this. What program and intensity achieves the best results? But the one thing they all agree on is this – What’s most important is to reset your RMR, otherwise known as your Resting Metabolic Rate.

Now, for you moms new to understanding your RMR, this is a good opportunity to separate the truths from the myths. A lot of untruths and half-truths have been spread around out there on the vast and seemingly trustworthy internet about which exercises you should do so you can reset your RMR. But a real RMR reset isn’t the result of one broad swoop of activity – rather, it’s a process that is staged across multiple, high-intensity, and high-nutrition events. The good news is that at a professional fitness retreat with a team of certified trainers, you’ll get a full education on what this does to help you be able to eat well, feel great while working out, and still lose weight. RMR, you see, is not simply a one-size-fits-all approach to data-driven weight loss. It requires accurate testing in order to properly build a fitness and nutritional plan that will truly hone in on your maximum performance zone to produce the results you want. This, along with a series of other, trainer-led professional testing (such as cutting-edge 3-D body scanning) designed to get the most out of what you put into the program.

Once you’ve successfully onboarded (if the camp you attend is doing its job), then the team of trainers goes to work behind the scenes, crafting the ideal program within the group training environment to keep your body challenged and ‘in the zone’ needed to produce this ‘reset’. Some camps call it ‘in the zone’ training, while at Fit Farm, we like to SWEAT (Significant Workout Events Adaptively Tuned), which is probably why you’ll often hear us say ‘Get Sweaty!’ or ‘Get Whippy With It!’ at least a hundred times during your time with us! And after the first week, you’ll begin to notice a few things happening…

One of the first things most moms notice is a swift and sudden resetting of sleep cycles. This is the result of your metabolism beginning to fall in sync with your circadian rhythms. Your endocrine levels and overall body chemistry become stabilized as you get deeper into the program. These new health and fitness data metrics are demonstrated through the monitoring of your heart rate monitor, aka Fitbit or smartwatch (which is a must-have for all guests to wear throughout the duration of the program). Professionals working within the fitness retreat environment carefully monitor your nutritional balance while creating a fitness program fitting your exact needs. But this is only half of the equation. You’ll be able to reset all of the above for maximum performance while at camp, but what makes it last when you go home is the exit program. This is designed to allow you to take charge of your life changes, and everything you’ve ‘reprogrammed’ your body and mind for beyond the retreat. You see, our mommy brains have often fallen into a rut when it comes to time and function. We move through our daily tasks and what needs to be taken care of, but without the much-needed fitness and wellness activities that should also be included in our schedule. We happily take care of everything and everyone else, but often fall victim to feeling completely wiped out by the end of the day because we didn’t allow ourselves the time for self-care.

This aspect of fitness retreat therapy, if nothing else,… is the real key to long-term success. It helps you develop an entirely new worldview about how and where you spend your efforts and time at home, at work, and in recreation – as well as which activities you choose to engage in going forward. We all know from Einstein that time is relative, but when you’re a crazily busy mom, time can move too fast. You may think that you don’t have the time to take care of yourself through proper eating or creating a workout plan right now. But trust me when I say that a well-designed fitness retreat program will give you a ‘light year’ head start on giving you a better perspective on how time spent on your personal self-care creates a happier, healthier version of you with more energy to spend in other areas of your life. r. A professional health team teaches you the simple, healthier choices you can make in your life so this new lifestyle isn’t a burden to you and those you love which is another key takeaway that sets the stage for success in both the short and long term!

Alright. Let’s get to the heart of the matter: Food. One thing (perhaps) keeping you away from fitness retreat ‘therapy’ is the fact you’re worried you can’t eat the foods you like. And you know what? It’s not a surprise. The generation of short-gain, long-fail fat camps that promise the world, and sell a ‘skinny’ version of the truth, have in all reality done one thing, sold you…short. Most of these camps simply restrict your caloric intake by touting their own supplements, vitamins, and unrealistic eating habits that fail to satisfy and leave you hungry. This is where the proof literally is in the ‘pudding’ and you can see which camps actually have certified nutritionists and chefs working for them behind the scenes to make the most out of your stay.

At Fit Farm at Rock Springs, for example, our chefs and nutritionists emphasize a ‘Real Food For Real Life’ approach to eating well and naturally. That doesn’t mean that you must shop for only organic, non-GMO, boutique shopping markets just to be able to recreate the food you eat on the farm. The truth is, some of the produce we serve at Fit Farm is from our garden (seasonally), is generously portioned, and is the same food you’re used to eating at restaurants and at home. It’s simply prepared in balance with your specific nutritional and health metrics (remember we talked about those before?) in order to make the most of the needed proteins and carbohydrates your body so desperately needs during a professionally crafted training program.

The last piece of the nutritional equation is (of course) frequency. How many times are you eating per day? Chances are, it’s too few. Here at Fit Farm, we have three meals per day along with two healthy snacks to keep you going and get your body in ‘burning engine’ mode. It’s always amazing to us when guests of ours talk about trying other approaches to losing weight that didn’t work out. Many believe that calorie reduction or elimination diets will allow them to meet their weight goals. When in all reality, there is so much more to it. They are shocked to find their eating more at the farm, eating (principally) what they want, but losing more weight and feeling better than they ever did before.

Bottom line, any fitness retreat worth its salt knows that the salt of life is FOOD, and fighting with food isn’t the answer to healthy living. Finding real food in the right amount and frequency is.