I had a longtime client in a training session recently, and she kept working after the bell rang and the AMRAP was done.

“I need to make up for the week when I was on vacation and I couldn’t be here,” she said, in mid-burpee.

Now, while I appreciated the effort, I have a couple of problems with this:

1. Why does vacation always have to be a no-holds-barred descent into inactivity and poor nutrition decisions?

2. If we’re always in the mode of trying to “make up” for past mistakes, how can we ever get ahead?

So without being judgmental (because I’ve gone on vacation, too, and haven’t always made the best decisions), here’s a better way to handle this:

Plan Ahead (Not Behind): If you know you’ve got a vacation, busy time, or holiday season coming up -- when working out consistently and making smart nutrition choices will be challenging -- plan in advance. Ramp up your workouts and dial in your nutrition ahead of time … so you won’t have to always be playing “catch-up” after the fact.

Ditch The “All Or Nothing” Approach: It’s possible to go on vacation (or holiday season) and exercise a bit, indulge a bit, and avoid having to climb out of a huge deficit when it’s over.

Look … what’s done is done. But we have another major opportunity ahead of us. September is basically over, and once we get to Halloween, we’ll snap our fingers and Thanksgiving will be here.

And then, the holiday season.

Let’s start planning for this NOW.

Let’s not be one of those people who has two months of inactivity and overindulgent eating to “make up for” after the fact.

Let’s start doubling down on our workouts.

Let’s rein in our nutrition, sleep and stress management now … so we don’t dig ourselves in a hole and have to climb back out again.

Let’s get ahead and pad our lead, so we can afford to make a few mistakes we won’t have to “make up for” later.

The time to get ahead is now.