The crisp air, the snow, the music… The holidays are HERE!
The holidays are an amazing time to celebrate with your family and friends, take a little break, and enjoy yourself. While it is important to take a break, it’s also important to remain consistent with the actions you’ve been taking for your goals.
Trust us, this doesn’t at all mean you won’t enjoy the holidays, but what it means is you will come out of the holidays having maintained the progress OR even made progress WHILE still enjoying yourself.
In this blog, we will share with you the top 6 ways we are able to stay on top of our fitness and nutrition goals during the holidays that you can implement for yourself.
WORKOUT IN THE MORNING
The holidays might me a time of rest for you, or it might be just the opposite because you will have all these extra plans of seeing people, attending parties, and going to dinners.
One of our secrets to always making sure we get our workout in is prioritizing them, and doing them first thing in the morning before we do anything else.
You know the all favourite saying, “oh, I’ll do it in a bit”, and how that just ends up turining into never. So don’t let that happen to you again this holiday season. Instead schedule your morning workout, do it (and yes, it won’t always be easy - it isn’t for us either), and you won’t have to worry about it later.
Not only will you not have to stress about having to do the workout, but you will be more energized, productive, and create a win for yourself right from the start of the day.
The more you do these morning workouts, the easier they will become as they will become a part of your routine.
So what are some tips to making these morning workouts happen?
Schedule in your calendar
Get enough sleep
Prepare your clothes the night before
Know what workout you will do
Have a reward post workout (our favourite is a big breakfast and coffee)
As you implement the steps above, and some discipline, you will notice you will need less and less discipline and that it will only get easier. Not only that, but you might notice you will keep this up even post the holidays.
ENJOY YOURSELF BUT… EAT YOUR PROTEIN
If you follow us on our social accounts (@stayfitcoach_ and @michellepetrovic on Instagram) you will notice we LOVE our food.
We have found a way to enjoy our foods, but still also hit our goals at the same time, and you can honestly do the same.
Knowing that you can still go to a dinner and party and enjoy the food and not harm your progress is also very empowering and will ease your mind during the holidays.
So how do we do it?
Our easiest and most effective way is to ensure we are eating a lot of protein.
We ensure we hit our protein goals (which we got by calculating our Macronutrients), and make sure that majority of our protein is eaten before going out to eat. Now if you don’t know your protein goal, a good starting point is 3-4 palm sizes of protein a DAY.
We know when we are home that it’s easier to hit our protein goal because we are more in control of the food we are eating. We also know that when we go out, we won’t have that much control, and that majority of foods when eating our doesn’t contain a lot of protein but are food carbohydrate and fat heavy foods. Knowing this, we eat majority of the protein before going out.
By eating our protein throughout the day and before attending a party or dinner, it also ensures that we will have less cravings and be able to make better choices for food. It also eases our minds over the idea of having to “eat healthy” and allows us to enjoy the carbs and fats that we didn’t the other days or throughout the day.
With enough protein in your diet you will notice you will be more full, have less cravings and for that reason pick foods for enjoyment but not over indulge.
REMIND YOURSELF OF YOUR GOALS
Do you remind yourself of your goal on a weekly or daily basis? If you don’t, now’s the time to start.
I know you might say, “well, my goal is just to maintain” or “I want to lose body fat”, but we encourage you to get a little more specific.
If it’s to maintain, knowing what exactly that means to you. Does it mean maintaining your habits around working out and nutrition? How often do you workout now? How do you eat? If it’s to maintain your current physique, what are you doing currently that got you to this physique.
If it’s to lose body fat, how much exactly are you looking to lose. Are you going down a certain amount of pant sizes, is there a dress you want to fit into, is there a physique you are striving for. What habits need to be in place for that to happen.
Remind yourself not just of the generic goal, but also the smaller goals that will all add up to the big picture. Write those small goals down, and read them to yourself weekly, or even daily.
Reminding yourself of these goals, will help you keep yourself accountable, and THIS is what will get you moving when you really don’t feel like it. Trust us, you will have those days.
DO FUN OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES
If you have extra time, or your friends and family want to do something, get creative! Hanging out doesn’t just need to be sitting by the fireplace and drinking egg nog, but it can also mean doing fun outdoor activities.
Not only will you be bonding and having fun, but you will also be supporting your fitness goal by being active.
So what are some fun outdoor activities?
Attending light festivals and walking
Snowshoeing
Skiing or snowboarding
Building snowmen
Walking in a neighborhood and admiring decorated homes
Having a snowball fight
After being out in the cold, it will be ever so rewarding to sit in your warm clothes, and enjoy a nice cup of hot chocolate while watching some holiday movies with your family or friends.
WATCH YOUR ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION
The main culprit… ALCOHOL.
Alcohol is one of those things that gets past many people because people assume they can’t be drinking as many calories as they eat. Opposite to food, alcohol is an empty calorie, meaning it is not a protein, nor a carboydrate, nor a fat, so the body can’t use it for energy, and it just gets stored as body fat. To give you perspective, a glass of wine is roughly 225 calories, and an average person has 1800-2000 calorie daily consumption.
Something to look out for when you are at a dinner or party, is keeping track of your alcohol consumption. Our rule of thumb is one to two drinks, and staying away from fancy, sugary drinks. We also ensure to have a glass of water for every drink and encourage our clients to do the same.
This way you stay hydrated, and don’t use alcohol as a means of “hydrating”.
We also personally like using the calories we’d consume from alcohol towards desserts and the rest of the yummy foods at parties!
MAINTAIN A CONSISTENT SLEEP SCHEDULE
No school, no work, no responsibilities, I can sleep whenever and sleep in till whenever. Simply put, no.
We aren’t saying you can’t sleep in a bit, but we want to stress the importance of waking up around the same time every day.
Why?
Our bodies love routine. They like knowing when will wake up, when we will sleep, as that is how they will best recover.
Getting good quality sleep isn’t just about sleeping more, but how effective your sleep is.
Next to not consuming alcohol or caffeine to closely to sleep, sleeping around the same time will also help you get into a better sleep cycle.
Sure some days you will be staying out later, but make it a priority to get to bed around the same time the days you don’t go out late.
Remember, proper sleep also equals to better actions at the gym and with your nutrition. Better actions equals to more and better results.
With that said, take each tip and apply the tips that you feel best support your goal. The more tips you apply throughout the holidays, the more consistent you will stay with your health goals, and ensure you are making progress or maintaining the progress you’ve made thus far.
Don’t let this be another year of having to start over in after the holidays.
If you need help with accountability and staying on top of your nutrition and fitness goals, send us an email at hello@noriathletics.com or fill out our application form HERE.