December is upon us, with all its winter thrills of getting excited for Christmas
It is full of temptations, snacks, mince pies, chocolate they seem to be everywhere, together with the social occasions and Christmas parties with all their alcohol-induced frivolity.
Did you know the average adult will put on between 6-14lbs in December alone?
With the Christmas jumpers and central heating on full blast, we move a lot less and eat a lot more.
Nobody really wants to go out into the cold dark night to bump up their steps or be that person who is logging their Christmas dinner on my fitness pal.
So what CAN you do to avoid the Christmas podge but still enjoy yourself?
Here are my 5 top tips to enjoying the festive period without it making the summer slim down ever so painful.
Focus on weights training, mass moves mass so if you are carrying a few extra pounds or eating a few extra kcals use these to fuel your workouts. Make sure you are tracking your progress and aiming to progress load, weight, or sets. Driving up performance while food is high will pay off big when you then pull kcals back in the spring.
There is a LOT of temptation around at this time of year and trying to be overly restrictive can actually have the opposite effect. Self-control is like a muscle, it gets tired, so a full day of telling yourself no, may lead to bingeing behaviors in an evening. Allowing yourself the ability to enjoy the little things. Having one of the celebrations boxes that are being passed around but stopping at one or two. Planning food into your diet that is nutrient-dense for main meals will leave you some extra wiggle room to be able to enjoy some of those treats. Just accept it and account for them by making smarter decisions elsewhere.
Possibly shift your focus from losing weight to maintaining where you are, as I mentioned before the average person packs on a few pounds around this time of year. So changing the expectations to be at maintenance will give you more food and kcals to play with. Allow yourself the freedom to enjoy this month as it's been a hard couple of years and not feel guilty about it.
Try to keep moving, it's cold and wet and dark at night time, which means you will have to actively think about where in your day you will be able to fit in some time to get you 6-10k steps. Start small and track where you currently are. If you are sitting at 2k steps a jump to 10k will be massive. However, adding on an extra 1k steps is 10 mins of brisk walking. If you truly can’t find 10 mins to do a brisk walk have a quick look at your schedule to see where this can fit in..
Remember that the 51 weeks between New year and Christmas are far more important to your health and long-term goals than the 1 week between Christmas and new year. Don’t hyper restrict back after an over-indulgent day or two, just return to your normal eating patterns and know that it's FAR easier to pull off an lb or two than it is to repair the damage saying no to one more of your mother in laws home-baked mince pies.
SO there you have it my top 5 tips to navigating the Christmas period without being restrictive or putting a stone on in the process.
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