The 'Not So' Holiday Hack Plan for Maintaining a Fitness Routine

*image from CNN

Happy Holidays!  Let’s sit down, watch the game, the yule log on Netflix, or 24 hours straight of A Christmas Story, fill up on bread before dinner, and take our tryptophan naps. The holidays, (Thanksgiving included) - are shrouded in family, friends, food, travel, and unfortunately, stress. The perfect combo to derail any sense of routine or patterns in an aspiring or current healthy-habits person.  

I’ll jump to the end before you read the rest of the rambling words:

HAVE YOUR DAMN CAKE AND EAT IT TOO!

There are a few different thought roads we can go down with this one.  Holidays can bring out the best and worst in people and routines. Here are a few of the internal, or not-so internal monologues from different view points.

1. “I am going to allow myself one day of eating what I want. I will get back to my routine tomorrow.” 

   • Great. As long as getting back to the routine ‘tomorrow’ is actually tomorrow and not 2 weeks from ‘tomorrow’.

   2. “I will fill up on proteins, and vegetables. After dinner, I will go for a walk. My family can come too, but I need to move.”

   • Also great! But, that doesn’t allow you the joy of filling up on bread, or eating that weird sweet potato/marshmallow thing.

   3. “RAGE!!!!! I AM GOING TO EAT EVERYTHING! I really don’t care how I feel the next day, I am not going to work.”

   • YEAH! 

   4. “If I eat a little bit of everything, I can taste everything but I won’t be too full to not move.”

   • Also, great. Moderation seems to be a go-to word here.

   5. “Ok, If I go crazy in the gym this week, I can eat whatever I want. That makes sense, right?

   • Oh geez. Please don’t. While going HAM can result in some fun training days, it is not worth potentially causing an injury or putting yourself in too much of a caloric deficit. 

   6. “I will eat whatever I want, and I will just do extra stuff in the gym.”

   • Also, oh geez. It is great that you are so excited to work your butt off in the gym. That also comes with its downsides too. You may have been traveling, and possibly more stationary than you are used to. Your body may not be ready to dive in head first after all the shenanigans.

The easiest way I can summarize ‘holiday hacks’ is with no tricks, or tips. There are the extreme ways of dealing with the change in routine, and there are the subtle changes. My thoughts would be to follow your same routine, knowing you just added a few more changes on a specific day. Maybe the changes lasted a few days with family visiting and all. The easiest way to stay on a routine and get back into one, is to do exactly what you were doing before so as to not add such a drastic change in one direction or the other. Holidays and gatherings should be about family and enjoying your time spent with them.  

Go for a few walks, teach your little nieces and nephews how to foam roll, or just enjoy the little bit of time off. Either way, fall back into the routine that was working as soon as you can.

If you are interested in getting back into or into a new routine, reach out to Soma VT’s coaches for a free consultation for Personal Training or Semi-Private Training to get started. Also, training sessions make an incredible holiday gift, fitness it for life - get started now!