WINTER HEALTH WAKE-UP: DITCH THE COUCH NOW TO AVOID SUMMER REGRET LATER

IT’S pitch dark when your alarm jolts you awake. Your bed is warm, your room is icy, and the mere thought of your gym shoes makes you want to pull the covers over your head.

- VUYILE MADWANTSI

But here's a truth that most of us ignore: when your body begs you to hibernate, that’s exactly when you need to move the most.

Winter comforts now, summer sadness later

Every July, thousands of South Africans slip into what experts call “winter inertia”, that quiet slump when warm meals and Netflix feel like self-care, but chip away at your energy, mood and immunity.

According to a 2022 South African Journal of Clinical Nutrition study, local adults gain an average of 2-5kg over the colder months’ weight that rarely just “melts away” come spring.

This weight creep fuels a vicious cycle of sluggishness, stress and even mild depression. Behavioural psychologists say shorter days throw our body clocks out of sync, dropping serotonin (our natural feelgood chemical) while raising melatonin, the hormone that makes us sleepy.

Add a drop in vitamin D and a spike in carb cravings, and you've got a recipe for seasonal blues and stubborn winter weight.

Pressing pause costs more than you think.

“Your body doesn’t have a calendar,” says Marlie Hattingh, a Planet Fitness X HYROX Master Trainer who is based at Planet Fitness Wanderers, Johannesburg.