Staying Fit During the Holidays

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Its that time of year again. Christmas is fast approaching, and New Years is right on its tail. For many of us, the holiday season is a time  to break away from our daily routine. We usually take some time off work, some may travel to see loved ones, or go on a relaxing vacation. While breaking the daily routine is something we look forward to doing, something we should shoot to stay on top of this holiday season is our fitness. We have all taken some extended time off of our gym schedule at some point. With that, our diet usually follows suit. So we all know  how much of a drag it can be getting back into the flow of things! Even just a full week of being lazy and off a diet can make you feel like you’ve fallen off the fitness wagon. This holiday season lets try to make a little extra effort to stick to our good habits and avoid that dreaded comeback.

 

                 Bust out those ugly Christmas sweaters, its that time of year!!

Let me make one thing clear before I start offering tips on how to stay on top of your fitness during the holidays. I am in no way saying you need to be a stickler, a #nodaysoff kind of person. I want you all to enjoy yourselves as much as possible this holiday. But after reading this article from Box Life magazine, I realized you don’t have to be to stay on top of your fitness! We want to retain our good habits as much as possible going into 2018.  The things that I suggest will not take much effort and can easily work their way into your holiday schedule without disrupting your time off.

The holiday season is notorious for throwing people off their healthy eating habits. Whether its good ol fashioned home cookin, or calorie loaded sugar delights, maintaining a healthy diet is a serious struggle during the holidays. One thing to minimize the chance of this happening is try to save binge meals for the actual holidays. Realize that there will be a couple days over the coming weeks where you will throw caution to the wind when it comes to diet. Try to keep those days in mind leading up to, and in between them, to best manage excessive binge eating. Another diet tip is do not practice mindless eating. If you find yourself staring at the fridge aimlessly, or looking for answers in the pantry, chances are you are not that hungry. We have all done it when binging seasons of our favorite Netflix show. We saddle up with our favorite bag of chips telling ourselves, “I’ll just have a few.” Five episodes later we reach into the bag, only to find the crushed little remaining bits of the chips (no one likes those).   We managed to eat the entire bag because we were bored not because we were hungry. This leads me to another tip: try to avoid eating in front of screens. Whether its a college football game or your favorite Christmas movie, eating in front of  a screen can distract us from our feelings of satiation(feeling full).

Something else people also struggle with during the holidays is staying on top of their workouts. While you don’t need to stick to your regular workout schedule to the T, we want to try to minimize the fall off from it. There are many ways we can do this and it can be as simple as setting aside just 20 minutes! The first one will apply to those of you who travel during the holidays: try to drop into another CrossFit Gym! For me, dropping into other gyms is extremely fun because you get to be in a new environment. The coaching might be different, the workout style, or even the people. It doesn’t have to be a huge commitment, maybe just a couple of sessions while you’re traveling will keep you on track. Another option can be to try something different from your regular workout routine. Go try that spin class a friend keeps bugging you about, go to your brothers/sisters globo gym with them, get outside and go on a hike or bike ride with family, theres lots of things to do to keep you moving! The last option is for those who just want something simple and effective: just to do home workouts. Below is a lost of workouts you can do with minimal equipment. Make sure to get a proper warm up before you workout, if you need help structuring one check out this article Marko wrote on how to properly warm up.

Annie: 50-40-30-20 and 10 rep rounds of: Double-unders and sit-ups

Surfer on Acid: 3 rounds for time, 400m run, 21 burpees

Susan – 5 rounds for time:  Run 200m, then 10 squats, 10 push ups

Tabata: 20 seconds of work/ 10 seconds of rest, for 8 rounds 

 

As said before, I want you to enjoy the Holidays as much as possible, but that doesn’t mean you have to completely fall off of the practices you have been so dedicated to. I want you to have that Christmas Movie Marathon, to loosen that belt a few notches after Christmas dinner, but I want you to still be able to come back into the gym and hit the ground running in 2018. Try to just implement a few of these strategies over the coming weeks and you’ll be surprised at how little it will disrupt your holiday enjoyment!

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