Everyone loves Christmas right? Whether it’s the family time, all the AMAZING food & drink or even all the pretty decorations, it’s a special time of year. That being said, it is so, so common to hear of people struggling to try and navigate their way through the festive season without totally fu*king up their health & fitness goals. Hey, we’ve all been there!
Christmas is a time that should be enjoyed without the guilt! No one wants to be that person who can’t eat the roasties because their ‘diet’ won’t let them, or they miss out on the socials because they can’t face the tray fulls of nibbles and drinks on offer. Well, here are 4 top tips to help you enjoy Christmas without worrying.
1. Account For Social Events and Plans
It’s Monday and you’ve been going all guns blazing with your Health & Fitness but uh oh, you’ve got a work meal in the diary for this Friday! What do you do? Make up an excuse to bail? Go along and be that colleague that orders a Kale Salad and Diet Coke? NO! You’re going to go and bloody enjoy yourself and this is how.
Bank some calories in the knowledge that on Friday you want to have a good time. That’s just a fancy term for eating a bit less Monday through Thursday to make sure that overall when you get to the end of the week, you’ve still managed to enjoy yourself AND stay on track. If you were to eat say, 300 calories less each day that’s a grand total of 1200 Calories extra wiggle room you have for Friday so why not have that desert or extra couple of drinks? Well now you can, you’re most welcome.
2. Shorten Your Workouts Instead Of Missing Them
Your workouts are normally 45 minutes to 1 hour long, but you are so busy at the moment with everything going on at work, with the family and all the other events in between so you don’t have time to train! At least that’s what you’re telling yourself, but what’s better? A 0 minute workout or a 25 minute blast? Exactly!
Even if you are limited for time and can’t manage to fit in your planned workout, that doesn’t mean you can’t get something done. Why not superset some of your exercises and go through them back to back, that will eliminate a lot of time from your workout! Why not give a HIIT style workout a go and setup 4 or 5 exercises that you are going to work through for 20 minutes with little rest? Anything you can do is better than nothing so make sure that even if you are busy, you push yourself to make time for something.
3. Be Mindful, Dont Eat Just Because
It can be easy to just rationalise it to yourself and go into full on f*ck it mode but you must resist the urge! Of course you can enjoy some treats here and there but during Christmas the temptation is much higher. You can feel the mince pies sat in the cupboard calling your name, your colleague Dawn has bought in the 15th tub of Celebrations this week and you are want to grab some of the Malteser ones before all of your colleagues rob them and leave you with the bounties!
It’s totally fine to have a couple of the little treats you want every now and again, but when you are full you need to stop! Don’t just continue to pick at them because they are there, mindless eating is a real thing so just make sure before you put something extra in your mouth you ask yourself do I really need this? Your future self will thank you for it.
4. Don’t Put Too Much Pressure On Yourself
You’ve been doing great and losing a couple of pounds a month which is amazing! Good for you. Now, you get to December and you’re faced with a bit of a dilemma and it’s easy to get tunnel vision and not consider the bigger picture but don’t worry, I’m here to help! You have a couple of options here ;
You avoid ‘bad foods’ at all costs, don’t go to any of the social events and don’t really get to enjoy yourself over Christmas, but you lose 4 pounds in December. You didn’t get to take any sort of break so you just roll into January having not been able to enjoy some of the things you might have wanted to.
You decide you know what, I’m going to have a bloody good Christmas and I’m not going to beat myself up about it. You’ve lost 10 pounds in total over the last few months and your really proud of that so you decide to use the tips above, have a great Christmas and do everything you want to whilst being mindful and you actually manage to maintain your weight as it is which is fantastic. Yeah you don’t lose any more weight in December but guess what, you’re still 10 pounds lighter than a few months prior and you had a really good Christmas, you feel refreshed and your back ready to go in January.
I know which one I would prefer! Don’t beat yourself up, life is for living so you need to make sure you are happy, so you can enjoy it now as well as healthy so you can enjoy it for longer!
So there you have it! Some of my top tips for being able to juggle staying on track this Christmas whilst still being able to enjoy it. I hope these help you, if you are looking to try something new, introduce a bit more structure to your health & fitness or get involved in a great community why not join Peach Club and give it a go, there’s no commitment! I’d love to have you as part of the community and help you on your journey, click the link below to sign up
