Ahh Christmas season is upon us and we have now entered back-to-back celebrations full of indulging foods and leisure activities. This can definitely be a stressful time for many where our health and fitness goals tend to be put on the back burner. If the overwhelming party preparations and the never ending eating and drinking festivities are stopping you from maintaining your fitness goals then this blog is for you!

Keep reading to learn quick tips on how to stay fit and healthy this Christmas!

While we believe in avoiding restriction and to enjoy all foods in moderation, it is also important to be mindful of what and how much you are putting into your body as an overall health goal. When approaching food and fitness around the holiday's, we want to go in with a positive mindset to reduce the stress and anxiety that may be more prevalent during this time.

Christmas is a time of celebration, and this often results in overindulging and not having enough time to get a workout in. This then links to crazy New Year's resolutions, restriction around food, and overexercise, which is essentially what we DON'T want. Some of the problems holding you back from staying on track with your goals may be as followed:

• "Christmas parties tend to not have healthy foods and I end up overdoing it."

• "This holiday season is way too busy to fit a workout in during the day."

• "New Years is in a few weeks, I'll just start January 1st."

• "I restricted all day, and then ended up bingeing at Christmas dinner."

If any of these problems sound familiar to you during the festive season, we are sure the following tips will help you!

Tips on How to Stay Fit & Healthy This Christmas

1. Stay consistent with your exercise routine

Consistency is the key to motivation. Staying consistent throughout the holiday season may be challenging; however, reduced training doesn't mean that all your progress has gone down the drain. Research has shown that training at maintenance level can result in minimal to no fitness losses. In fact, some cases have shown that performance can actually improve after a short period of reduced training because the body has more time to rebuild and recover. So, no need to sweat over the few weeks of de-loading!

So how can you stay consistent with your exercise routine over the holidays?

• First, remember your WHY and what your goals are.

• Second, plan your workout, what time to schedule it in, and execute on the plan.

Whether your workout is a short HIIT workout or quick jog on the treadmill, remember that a little exercise is better than no exercise.

2. Be mindful with your nutrition

Christmas parties may not always be the most macro-friendly events, but with a little planning you can still enjoy all the holiday foods, while keeping your calories in check. Simple fixes, such as cutting the recipe's sugar measurement in half or swapping the brown sugar for coconut sugar! Below are a few options on how to enjoy the holiday dishes without falling off track.

1. Swap the real sugar for a sugar-free replacement.

2. Adjust your portion to half (or smaller) than the normal plate load of calorie-dense foods.

3. Limit your alcohol intake. If you find yourself drinking the whole body of wine at these festivities, try going for one or two glasses instead. This saves anywhere from 100-200 calories!

4. Choose the smarter, healthier option. Of course, everything in moderation; go ahead and scoop out a small portion of that layered chocolate pudding! However, keep in mind that there may be a healthier alternative such as fruit salad or dark chocolate bark to have instead.

5. Recreate Christmas dessert recipes by making one of our healthy, protein-packed recipes on our blog!

3. Avoid skipping meals

This is probably one of the best pieces of advice we can give you. Avoid skipping meals throughout the day. Why? This is because when we restrict throughout the day, we have a stronger urge to overeat or even binge at night. Our bodies need nutrients throughout the day, rather than trying to pack it all in at night. Making sure that you are consistent with your meals and snacks throughout the day will help you stay on track at Christmas dinner that evening.

Eating less, more often instead of two to three enormous meals may be beneficial for you! Additionally, smaller meals and snacks throughout the day will help stabilize blood sugar levels and reduce cravings at night!

4. Prioritize your strength workout

If one of your fitness goals is to maintain and/or grow muscle mass, it is important to prioritize your strength workout! When induced with back-to-back holiday festivities, you might find yourself with lower energy than usual. It may be tempting to lift lighter weight or overdo it on the cardio, but this is where you have to refer back to your health and fitness goals. If you are wanting to maintain and gain muscle, this time of year may actually be beneficial to you. All the extra calories being consumed might even be going toward some of your muscle growth this season!

Sometimes prioritizing a workout throughout the day can be challenging, but finding a way to squeeze it in will have many beneficial effects. Try getting your workout done in the morning while everyone is still sleeping or squeeze in an at-home strength workout while the turkey is roasting!

5. Time batch your holiday preparations

Time batching.. Quite easily one of my favorite time management technique . What is time batching? This strategy is essentially grouping together certain tasks and setting out a chunk of time to complete these tasks. The purpose of time batching is to minimize procrastination and prioritize productivity.

So how can time batching keep you on track this Christmas? If you time batch your holiday preparations (cooking recipe dishes, wrapping presents, last-minute shopping, etc.), this will free up space for a workout. Any movement is good movement, so prioritizing a 30-60 minute workout will be very beneficial to your fitness goals!

6. Enjoy yourself

Last, but not least is simply to enjoy yourself. Christmas season only comes around once a year, so a few rocky weeks are not going to effect your progress. Make sure you are setting realistic goals and to not be so hard on yourself! The holiday's are all about spending time with family and enjoying all the indulging foods. Balance is key!

Fitmas 101: All Summed Up:

Christmas is a fun and festive time full of indulging foods and leisure down time. With that, Christmas may also be a time of stressing over your health and fitness progress. No need to stress! We hope that these tips on how to stay fit and healthy this Christmas reduced your anxiety around the holiday festivities.

The biggest takeaways that you can gather from these tips are:

• Avoid restriction. It only leads to overdoing it later that evening.

• Be mindful with your food choices.

• Prioritize your strength workout.

• Time batch the day to fit in some movement.

• ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAY!

RESOURCES

Cox, C. E. (2017, August). Role of physical activity for weight loss and weight maintenance. Diabetes spectrum : a publication of the American Diabetes Association. Retrieved December 20, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5556592/

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