How to Enjoy Summer Without Losing Your Momentum

Carl Constanza, Stanza Coach

Summer brings sunshine, holidays, family gatherings, social events, and plenty of downtime. All of these are positives — they’re part of what makes this season so enjoyable. But for many people, summer also brings less structure, more temptations, and the thought of “I’ll just start again in September.”

The problem? Stopping completely over the summer doesn’t just pause your progress — it often sets you back. When September arrives, you can feel like you’re starting from scratch again. The strength, fitness, and routines you’ve built over months suddenly feel harder to get back, and it takes longer to return to where you were.

At Stanza, we believe there’s a better way.

You Don’t Have to Choose: Progress or Fun

The truth is, you can have both. You can travel, enjoy meals with family and friends, make the most of the sunny days — and still keep moving towards your goals.

The worst thing you can do is stop completely. That serves nothing and solves zero. Instead, we encourage small tweaks that help you stay on track while still embracing everything summer has to offer.

Practical Tweaks That Work

Here are a few simple ways we help our members keep momentum through summer:

• Flexible sessions – if you can’t commit to your full routine, scale it down. Two solid workouts a week will keep you connected and stop the “reset” in September.
• Movement over perfection – walking, swimming, or outdoor activities all count. Think consistency, not intensity.
• Nutrition with balance – enjoy meals out, BBQs, and treats, but balance them with nutrient-dense meals and hydration.
• Stay accountable – whether through your coach, group sessions, or check-ins, accountability stops the “I’ll do it later” cycle.
• Shift gears when ready – some weeks will be lighter, some heavier. The key is to keep the engine running, so when you’re ready to push harder, it’s smooth.

Why This Matters

By staying engaged over summer — even at 50% — you avoid the “stop-start” trap that so many fall into. When September arrives, you’re not starting again. You’re already moving, and it’s far easier to shift up a gear and build momentum.

Final Word

Enjoying the summer and making progress aren’t opposites. With the right approach, you can do both. At StanzaFitness, we advocate tweaking, not stopping — because the best results come when fitness fits your lifestyle, not when it fights against it.

So go on — enjoy the sunshine, make memories, and keep yourself moving forward. September You will thank Summer You.

We Are Where We Are: Embracing Our Current State

Tim Low, Stanza Coach

Allow me to set the scene. As a young footballer I suffered injury after injury and seemed to be stuck in this injury doom loop – a cycle of pain, recovery and re-injury. Yet another morning back in the gym for rehab. Coach sensed my frustration and calmly said “We are where we are”.

The gravity of that simple sentence has forever stuck with me.

As gym-goers, we often find ourselves caught up in the idea of where we “should” be. We reminisce about the past—when we were in better shape, felt stronger, or could push ourselves harder. Sometimes, we even compare ourselves to others, feeling that we should be more advanced than we are now. But the truth is, we are where we are, and that’s perfectly okay.

Acceptance is the first step in any fitness journey. Our physical, emotional, and psychological states are constantly shifting. The body isn’t a machine that remains unchanged over time. Life events, stress, diet, and recovery all affect our ability to perform, and sometimes, we forget to acknowledge where we are in the present.

Instead of looking back at how we used to be or dreaming about some future version of ourselves, it’s important to meet ourselves where we are today. Whether that’s pushing for new personal bests, accepting the need for a slower pace, or simply showing up consistently, it all counts.

In the gym, just like in life, progress isn’t linear. Some days we feel on top of the world, while others may bring setbacks. Rather than fixating on the gap between where we are and where we think we should be, focus on what you can control now.

Embrace the journey as it unfolds, one step at a time. It may certainly feel like one step forward and two steps back at times. Nonetheless, by accepting where we are today, we allow ourselves to grow without the unnecessary pressure of comparison or perfection. So, don’t worry about what you could have done or where you “should” be. Celebrate the progress you’ve made (however little), and be proud of where you are, because that’s the starting point for everything that lies ahead.

Making adjustments for fat loss

Abi Taylor, Stanza Coach

I’ll start this firstly by saying, no diets work forever (and by diet I mean intentional period of time to reduce overall energy intake), but adjusting and assessing protocols to a diet is fairly integral if fat loss is the goal.

Ultimately dietary adherence is pretty important. If fat loss has stalled, is it because adherence has diminished? If so, why? It could be stress, your environment, a shift in focus, food choices and these all could lead to subconscious overeating.

So first of all, be honest, and ask yourself, have you ticked every box consistently? If the answer is yes, move to the next level…

If adherence has been spot on and markers of change (photos, measurements, how clothes fit etc) still aren’t budging, then changes and adjustments may need to be made.

I’ll caveat that by saying, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It’s easy to get caught up in wanting to alter things when it’s not needed e.g. program hopping, excessive cardio, unnecessarily restricting calories, or, more commonly, when results feel like they’re not happening fast enough (poor Susan who was sold the dream of losing a stone in a week and now thinks that’s a realistic expectation).

Ultimately, measure and monitor, be reactive if/when necessary and if you struggle to make decisions yourself, get a good coach who can help you with that.

If you can’t, a good place to start would be to monitor your intake for 7-10 days. Monitoring can be done in several ways; tracking via an app e.g MyFitnessPal, taking photos of your food or writing what you eat down on paper. This will give you an idea of what your average intake is. Once you’ve done this, you can then reduce this average from 10-20% and monitor progress from there.

 There is no magic number when it comes to fat loss or improving body composition. Starting somewhere, collecting data and adjusting accordingly is going to be one of the most appropriate and accurate approaches when it comes to achieving your body composition goal.

Are you willing to work for it?

Aaron Fitzgerald, Stanza Coach

Working with a personal trainer will seriously increase the likelihood of you achieving your goals.

Everything can be perfectly mapped out for you by a fitness professional: the appropriate exercise selection, volume, intensity, and frequency for your training. Pair this with the correct nutritional approach, and you’re well on your way to achieving your goals.

There’s something you may have overlooked: the challenge.

No, I’m not referring to some quirky training ethos from the early 90s. I mean the challenges you will face whilst working on yourself.

Some will be glaringly obvious, and some you’re possibly yet to encounter. The fact of the matter is, you will be challenged, and you will want to stop.

This can manifest in many ways: a rude early morning alarm, taunting you with the reminder of an early AM session. Your entire body telling you; “Yeah, just ease off a bit,” during the last 10 seconds on the bike-erg. The sweet, blissful temptation of that food item that you know you should avoid.

Those nagging voices in your mind, tempting you to stop. 

Do you relish a challenge, or is it something that makes you feel uneasy?
Truth is, the more we shy away, the harder it becomes.
We can leave valuable results on the table.

You must be willing to accept that aspects of this will be hard, and in turn, you’re willing to work hard to achieve your goals.

Lackluster effort = lackluster results.

Learning to welcome challenges with open arms is an extremely valuable tool.
In addition to missing out on results, avoiding challenges can lead us to a very defeatist and negative mindset around certain aspects of our health and fitness. “I don’t like the bike-erg.” “I can’t do this one.”

As soon as these thoughts enter our heads, the likelihood of us struggling increases.
Simply reframing  this can work wonders for your mindset.
Instead of viewing a challenge with negativity, welcome the opportunity to test yourself. Something that may be tough for a five-or-so-minute period once or twice a week is an opportunity to grow and progress.

No one else is going to do the work for you; remember that.

Take ownership of your efforts and take pride in it. 

Sustainability & Consistency with your fitness

Lily Cubitt, Stanza Coach

 I think there’s an expectation when you’re in the fitness industry that you have it all together, you’ve always got to be training for some big event and you have a smooth sailing path to reach your goals. Well I can tell you from my experience this just isn’t always the case…I have had my fair share of ups and downs during my fitness journey and one of my major issues was sustainability. 

I had only ever known extreme ways of completing goals if I wanted to loose weight id cut my calories down to the point I could just about function, loose the weight and then, yes you’ve guessed it, put it all back on again. I would always strive for perfection every single time and I would have complete tunnel vision when trying to achieve my fitness goals not realising that I was missing out on everything else life had to offer. 

At the end of the year 2024 I had fallen into the same trap I was in a restrictive calorie deficit that unfortunately led me into a restrict and binge cycle. My self worth was on the floor and I had no idea how to get myself back my me again. The only option from here was to strip everything back and work from the ground up. 

In the last six months I have focused on slow and sustainable progress. Working with a calorie goal that supports my goals and still fuels my workouts, focusing on hitting my specific protein intake and working on progressive load during my strength training. These have been consistent daily efforts that have led me to see progress over time. 

Unlike what social media has to say. There are no quick fixes or magic pills when It comes to your fitness journey. It takes patients, consistency and effort. I never wanted my body transformation to be an eight week shred or a 12 week shocking before and after photo I wanted this is be a body transformation that I could healthily maintain for the rest of my life. I really had to shift my thinking in how long this would realistically take. You should see peoples faces when I say I’ve given myself three years to get the physic I want because guess what that’s realistically how long it takes, if not longer with the goal I have in mind.  

Quick fixes in the fitness industry or thrown in our faces constantly and its always so tempting to chase after them, but I can tell you from my own experience that this will only set you back further in the long run and leaving you demotivated just like I was. I am constantly leaning more and more about myself during this transition and constantly checking in week by week if anything needs adapting or changing. What you don’t measure you don’t improve.

Nutrition for me will always be one of the hardest things to over come. This is why I’ve had to completely turn my way of thinking about food around. I thought the only way I could loose weight was to go into an extreme deficit turns out that was just not the case. I realised that focusing on higher protein and a gradual deficit was the key that enabled me to turn up to my sessions smash my workouts get stronger build muscle and feel really good at the same time. It is so important to know that this is a process, it’s a journey there will be bumps in the road but what’s most important here is that you continue to get up and keep moving forward, remember what the end goal is, remember that you owe it to yourself to see it through. Keep putting one foot in front of the other one day at a time.