the great summer paradox
leaning into the lack of routine while fantasizing about sleep away camps
Hi Noosers! Anne & Avery, here. Our view on health is simple: small daily actions add up. The basics are the priority: real food, movement you enjoy, and habits that support you. Anne (Registered Dietitian) and Avery (Health Coach) write Monday Noosletters based on research and our experiences — because at the end of the day, we all want to know what everyone else is doing, perhaps due to our innate curiosity around human behavior. We are mothers, friends, and athletes who want to share our knowledge and empower our readers to take their health into their own hands. Every first Monday of the month is free, but if you’d like to upgrade to a paid subscription to receive weekly Noosletters, we’d be thrilled!
Hey Noosers! Happy Monday. Our kids have been out for a few weeks already, but we can officially welcome summer now that the summer solstice has arrived. With these longer days, more sun (than rain, we hope), and more time outside, your schedule is bound to naturally shift. If you’re feeling like us — each day feels a little different now that the school year routine is on pause.
For me (Avery), the summer months can make my head spin. Camp pickup times fluctuate week to week (and day to day!) and I feel like I am constantly tweaking my daily game plan as the “cruise director” for the boys. My sister, Wally, and I always joke that we thrive during the shoulder seasons but struggle in the heart of seasons — it’s no surprise that I’m bracing myself now that summer has officially started.
When I read Anne’s nutrition piece, I thought, huh, that sounds like a really nice way to enjoy summer — rather than feel a little bit like a dumpster fire for three months, maybe I should just lean in and slow down. When I considered how I might do that, I realized that I find the most peace when I’m running in the early summer mornings — a little time to myself before the day begins is just the ticket.
Knowing how to charge your battery, especially when your routine shifts, is a great way to prioritize your health. Read today’s post for some of the ways Anne and I embrace this season while up to our eyeballs with kids, as we officially kick off summer!
If you like what you read, click the ❤️ at the top or bottom of this post — it will help readers like you find us on Substack✨
Nutrition: slow it dowwwwwn
As Avery mentioned above, our children have been out of school for over two weeks now. We spent last week visiting my sister and her kids at the Jersey Shore, and it truly feels like summer! The communal sentiment I feel, sense in others, and have read, is that we are all ready to slooow down. It’s almost as if the summer solstice arrived like an exhale. Maybe it was just that it stopped raining and the sun finally came out, ha! But if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice how our bodies are wired to the rhythm of the seasons.
As daylight stretches longer, something inside us naturally wants to slow down. You've probably felt it already—that natural unwinding from spring's frenetic energy. The lunch-packing, schedule-juggling, homework-helping, eat-on-the-run pace begins to soften. It's the perfect time to let this same unhurried energy transform how we eat. What if we let our eating habits shift with the change of season?
I don’t know about you, but as a working mom I feel like I am on a continuous hamster wheel, especially at the end of the school year. I like using summer as a recharge and to go “off schedule.” My eating habits tend to shift a bit too. I go from wolfing down breakfast and getting the kids packed up for school, to lingering over morning coffee and taking time to make a proper breakfast. That means actually sitting and eating it more often than not. You know what’s cool? The moment we slow down—really slow down—our bodies shift into what scientists call the “rest and digest” state.
When we eat slowly, our stomach has time to properly break down food. Our brain gets the 15-20 minutes it needs to register fullness, and our blood sugar rises gradually instead of spiking. Think about it: those rushed school-year meals when you barely tasted your food? Your body was working overtime just to process what you were throwing at it.
This summer, let’s make it a point to actually taste our food—the delicious bounty that is finally in season! Let’s feel our hunger and fullness cues, and let our digestive system do what it does best when we're not constantly in “crisis” mode. Even if it's just one meal a day where you put down your phone, take a breath, and truly savor what's in front of you—that's a win.
Movement: take a look around
OK, that was a totally necessary reminder for me (Avery) because the frenetic energy of spring tends to extend into the summer for me — I am inspired by Anne’s reflection! I do best with routines, and when school abruptly ends in early June, it takes me a while to get into “summer shape” with the boys at home — and I’m not talking about physical fitness “shape,” but rather getting into the right mindset for summer.
What usually upends me as a Virgo/oldest sister/touch of “type A” is the “every day is different” situation in the summer. Maybe it’s a good time to just loosen my grip a touch, and let the summer breeze take the wheel, rather than uphold the rigid schedule I rely on during the school year.
While I do aim to go with the flow this summer, I know that exercise keeps me sane. The mornings are bright and warm in the summer (hooray!) and there’s something so peaceful about getting outside first thing, when it’s quiet and the world is still waking up. I run by houses and imagine people making their coffee and shuffling around in their pajamas, planning their day and I feel lucky to be on the move, letting my mind wander and breathing in the fresh air.
It isn’t always easy rising to my 5am-ish alarm to go out for a run — but knowing the sun is rising is so inviting. The sense of awe that I experience outside at that hour is what keeps me coming back. Last week, when I went out to run, I left my AirPods at home (mostly so I could hear if any bears were up at that hour, too — bear spray is my summer workout accessory 🤣).
I listen to the birds chirping, the squirrels (or was that a bear) racing through the leaves, and look up at the lush canopy of greenery gently swaying in the breeze above me as I jog down the bike path. I think back to the cold mornings in the dark just a few months ago — footsteps crunching on the frozen sidewalk and layers of Under Armour insulating me against the cold — exercise in the summer is quite enjoyable!
We invite you to a new challenge for this week. Get outside and experience the awe. Whether it’s first thing in the morning with your bear spray or a friend, or in the early evening to pitch the wiffle ball to your kids — take a minute to enjoy your surroundings. Notice the leaves blowing in the wind, a bird soaring in the warm air or the dewy grass under your feet. Yes, it’s hard to motivate to exercise sometimes, but when you can pair it with the awe of nature, you might just enjoy it a little more and feel a moment of peace before the unpredictability of the day ensues.
Anne discovered the secret to embracing summer's unpredictability while visiting her sister last week—workouts that come with built-in entertainment and zero scheduling required, ha! Bear spray optional with this equipment.
Behavior
On Saturday during our run together, Avery and I got talking about the shift of the seasons. We were hashing out the Noosletter and we lingered on the idea of how challenging the shift of seasons can be as mothers, especially when our kids were (are!) young. Any shift in the schedule always seems to trigger a cascade of mental gymnastics. And to be honest, it also means the time to ourselves becomes increasingly less. A line in
’s most recent essay really resonated, “But I was having trouble concentrating. Trying to write with teenagers in the house is like trying to write with toddlers in the house, only their bodies are bigger and their needs are more complicated and there’s so much scrolling.”Feel free to substitute Katie’s sentiment about writing with any other *task/project/workout/stand alone in your kitchen* situation that applies to you — it’s hard to get things done on your terms when the kids are home all day again! Don’t get me wrong, I am fully embracing the slooowing down (as I wrote about above), but it’s easier to do when away from your home, I am realizing.
As mothers, we spend so much energy trying to anticipate every need and plan every moment. While chatting with a friend, the usual, “what are the kids doing this summer?” question came up. I could hear the stress in her voice as she rattled off camps (not enough of them!), pick-up timing conflicts, and then proceeded to talk about what their schedule may look like in the fall. I started sweating just hearing about it. Listen, being a working mom, I get the stress of camps that end at 1pm—really, 1pm?! Sleepaway camp never sounded so good!
But, I wish I could tell my younger self (because I am so old and wise now, lol) that there is beauty in the unplanned, and growth in the space between what was and what's coming. A new schedule will ensue and everyone will ease into it. The stress that comes with the unknown, the change, and the need to have a grip on it all is real! But just like when my babies were babies and I was the “sleep whisperer” and I nailed down the nap schedule, only have it change the next day, I’ve realized that our need for control often creates more chaos than the actual change itself.
Our kids are pretty darn adaptable—more adaptable than we give them credit for, and certainly more adaptable than we are. They roll with summer’s formless days and find rhythm in the rhythmless. Maybe the real challenge isn’t managing their transition; it’s managing our own anxiety about it.
This summer, instead of trying to chart out every week and contingency plan, I’m practicing letting go of the need to have it all figured out. The camps will end at 1pm (ugh), conflicts will arise, and we'll navigate them as they come. Because here’s what I’ve learned: the energy I spend trying to control the uncontrollable could be better spent actually enjoying the season we’re in. The schedule will sort itself out—it always does. So here’s to a summer of slowing down when we can, looking up more often (let’s increase that sky-to-screen ratio!!), and trusting that we’re all more adaptable than we think. The longest days are here—let’s savor them!!
Until next time…
Beautiful perspective and family 👊🏻