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How to Stop Christmas From Wrecking Your Fitness Goals
With Christmas (and it’s myriad of parties) being in full flow, it can be a tough time to stay on top of your health and fitness goals.
A cheeky mince pie here, a glug of mulled wine there, and how could you possibly say no to seconds and thirds when it would be a personal affront to Grandma?
This isn’t an article telling you to say no, or don’t enjoy all of the delicious food and booze that we all associate Christmas with, because you’re going to do it anyway. And if you think we’re not partial to a few beers and pies over Christmas then you’d be very wrong.
Christmas doesn’t necessarily have to sabotage all of your hard work that you’ve achieved in the first 11 months of the year.
Keep these tips in mind throughout the festive season to keep yourself in damage limitation mode.
1-Keep activity levels up
Get out the house for a walk or workout in your garage whilst you’re back home over Christmas with a bodyweight session (try to get this done first thing in the morning to avoid “relax would you? Its Christmas”. )
Another good way to stay active is to change your commute in December, get off the bus/ tube a stop or two early or even walk/ run to work for the month…great way to cure the hangover from the office do the night before too!
2- Plan ahead
If you know you’re going out for a large boozy meal then reduce the number of calories you eat earlier in the day in an attempt to compensate. Maybe skip breakfast and have a salad for lunch, so you can control your calorie intake. I don’t like completely avoiding meals prior to things like this though as going into events starving hungry, often compounds the problem.
3 – Eat your greens
Christmas is meant for over indulgence so why can’t that apply to veg? Make sure you eat plenty of veg and foods high in fibre to help with the additional load your digestive system is going to be struggling through over Christmas eve, day and boxing day.
4 – Drink plenty of water
When you’re drinking more alcohol your body is going to need more H20 – you don’t need to be Einstein to know this either but try to keep pre 12 pm water only.
5- Nail the turkey
On Christmas day fill up on the turkey meat. You’ve got to choose your poison and turkey is very lean meat that’s relatively low in calories yet high in protein so if you’re going to fill up on anything then there are worse things you could do it on than turkey.
6 – Enjoy it!
At the end of the day, Christmas should be a time for you to enjoy food and drink with family and friends so keep a healthy relationship with food and don’t over think it, sometimes there are more important things in life than abs.
The good news is – It’s not your habits between Christmas and New Year that shape your physique, it’s your habits between New Year and Christmas that do, so enjoy Christmas and make sure come the New Year you’re back on track.
We help our members with a nutritional programme that works for them, if you’re struggling, give us a shout at our gym or try out our personal training and we’ll help you work out a plan that suits you.
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