Happy Thanksgiving!
With the coming season ahead, I figured this was the perfect time to list out some of my favorite tips for staying on track to your fitness goals over the holidays. The only way I know how to give good advice is through my own personal experience, so I won't be unrealistic with this post and tell you all to completely skip alcohol and all dessert this holiday season (that's not real life- I definitely won't be doing that either! :) That being said, it is TOTALLY POSSIBLE to make it through the season enjoying whatever food you'd like, without being a complete glutton and putting on 5-10 pounds every single year! After all, holidays are for family and celebration, not derailing your fitness goals and regretting your decisions. In fact, if you do it right, you can even make some serious forward steps towards being in the shape you want to be in. The trick is to buffer for the higher-calorie eating by treating our bodies like fat-burning machines, eating more filling and nutrient-dense foods first, enjoying our food, and taking advantage of any extra carbohydrates and fat to fuel the next day's workout. Take one decision at a time, and before you know it, you're feeling great and in tune with your body, while still having fun and making the most of the season!
So, without further adieu, here are 8 of my favorite tips!
1) Seize the moment. Before any other relevant tips come into play, take a moment to be honest with yourself. If you're one of those people who's said that you've always wanted to get in shape, but that you're just going to start working out hard and eating right next month because the holidays are just a "bad time" - I've got some tough love and news for you: it's NEVER an easy time to get in shape! I could come up with excuses to be lazy all year round - there is always something that can possibly derail us from our fitness dreams- it's up to us to want it bad enough in the first place to stick to it! Sure, the holidays and other party-filled times of year can be a common excuse to fall off the fitness train, but I've yet to meet a person who was super happy that they didn't try, binged, and gained an unnecessary 10 holiday pounds. The time is now. If you want that body - go get it. No one will hand it to you and it sure can be tough work - but it's absolutely worth it!! :) Make a flexible but semi-structured plan for the month, plan ahead to make sure you get nutrients and productive workouts in, allow for fun and spontaneity, and you'll see some amazing things happen!
2) Drink lots and lots of water. And then drink some more. More often than not, when we feel the sensation of hunger, we are actually thirsty first. Most of us humans don't drink as much water as we need. Water should be #1 on the nutritional priority list: (it's what we are mostly made out of, for one thing), it energizes us, cleanses our system, transports nutrients around, helps us feel full, and keeps us from feeling sluggish and tired ... among many other reasons! Try drinking up to roughly a gallon a day - it may sound like a ton, but that is about how much water we should be drinking (give or take some based on body weight, activity levels, and thirst level). Try it my very favorite way- with half a lemon - for an extra energy buzz at the beginning of a workday or during those long holiday parties. I fill my 20 oz blender bottle 6-8 times throughout the day (again - this may sound like a lot, but if you're sweating and working out - you need more water than someone who is sedentary).
3) Don't stop working out!: Just because it's the holidays doesn't mean you are too busy to throw all healthy workout habits out the window. In fact, doing some short but intense weight lifting sessions (30-50 minutes) 3-7 times a week (or more if you have more ambitious goals and lots of time!) will keep your muscles burning through and utilizing the food you're eating for repair. Instead of chasing calories with cardio, think of your body as a lean fat-burning machine. The more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories your body needs on a regular basis. If your goal is to drop fat and have lean and shapely muscle - here's my advice: make your muscles the main focus of the week (strength training with heavy weights to fatigue with proper technique), with a side of cardio here and there for warmup, energy, mobility, and extra fat burn. Heavy weight training breaks down our muscle tissue and is constantly utilizing the nutrient-dense food that we eat for repair. This keeps our metabolism at a high, and builds in some wiggle room through the week for any of those heavier calorie days. In addition to staving off the fat storage- you're less likely to go off the deep end in the kitchen if you got your workout in that day or know that you have one coming up.
4) Outsmart your appetite: If you know that the gathering you're going to involves not too much on the nutritious end, or is based on fattening appetizers and not a substantial meal, eat something with fat and protein beforehand to make sure you're not ravenous by the time you get there. Around 20-40 grams of protein and 8-15 grams of fat should do the trick to keep you full (these numbers are estimates, and vary based on hunger level and muscle mass). Which leads into the next tip:
5) Fill up with fuel, then enjoy the fun foods. A huge trick for nutrition success during the holidays lies in the timing. Instead of eating empty calories and food like chips and sugary dips first thing at the party (which often leaves you even more hungry 20 minutes later): load up on the more filling foods first: some combination of veggies, lean protein, and healthy fats like hummus and avocado/guacamole, a handful of nuts, things along those lines are great options. In short, this shuts off the hunger signals in our body faster, and begins the repair process from the workout we did beforehand;)! Generally speaking, I always aim for fats and protein before carbohydrates, and this goes for daily life in addition to holiday parties. If it really comes down to it, and you'd like to know specifics - relatively, lean deli meats and veggies would come before spinach dip and crackers. Cheesy or meaty/veggie pizza (if you can handle dairy) would come before plain bread and rolls. Deviled eggs before potato chips and pretzels. You get the idea.
6) Just stop when you're full, and abs in!. You'll thank yourself for it! if you're starting to feel full or sick from too much of something - put it down! Something I had heard a long time ago: "Either you can waste the excess food into the garbage, or you can waste it onto your own body". Although it sounds a little crazy that I actually need to say this, many of us tend to forget that it's usually never ever fun to overeat to the point of being sick. How on earth can you enjoy yourself at a party if you don't feel well and feel like an inflated balloon? The whole point of eating " fun" food is so that we can actually enjoy it! Contrary to what some may think, the person who eats the whole tray of brownies doesn't usually have a better experience than the person who had just one. Make your calories count, choose wisely, and enjoy what you're eating. Another great trick that often works is to pull your abs in as often as you can during these gatherings. This serves as a posture check-in, a reality check for how hungry you actually are, and reminds you not to puff your stomach out to fill as much as you can into your torso. Take deep breaths, relax, abs in, listen to your body, and be in the present moment.
7) If you're going to drink alcohol - choose as non sugary as possible and follow every drink with at least 1 glass of water!! Drinking can definitely be fun. The after effects of a hangover usually aren't. So, if you're going to drink, you might as well do it the least destructive way. If you are going for a buzz, always make sure you eat some protein and fat (but not too much) before drinking. Go for lighter drinks like vodka water (or soda) with lemon, or lightly diluted hard alcohol or wine spritzers. The more sugary the drink is, the more likely our body will store it as fat the next day, so avoid extra sugar. Something I've learned the hard way several times: Drink a glass of water with each drink - you'll feel better that night, the next morning, and you will have likely avoided extra drinks and extra bad decisions. Also - water with lemon can hugely benefit how our body detoxifies after consuming alcohol.
8) Own your body! You're in control! Along the same lines as #1, one of the most important thing that you can do over the holidays is to keep a positive attitude. Don't feel that 2 brownies in, you've lost all chances of a healthy diet and now need to just spiral out of control and eat the whole tray of them. Feel in control, enjoy what you eat, and don't feel the need to keep eating whatever it is until it's totally gone. A few bites of anything super sweet or fatty is usually all we need to feel the effect of satisfaction (which is the whole point of eating dessert and fun food in the first place!) Remind yourself that there is always more fun food to try on the way, and that you aren't "missing out". Also- no need to drown yourself in guilt the next day if you overdose on food or make a misstep. Guilt can make us feel worse, out of control, and continue to make poor health decisions afterwards. All that we actually have to do is decide, right now, to get back on track to our healthy plan and keep going!
