We are only a couple days away from Thanksgiving, which means, the Holiday season is upon us! This is a great time of the year. The Christmas music, visiting family and friends. Watching your kid’s eyes light up when they open the gifts. The Christmas lights. A time to reflect and be thankful for what you have in your life. The delicious food and deserts.
Yeah, speaking of delicious food and deserts… this is also the time of the year that most people will reduce the number of times they make it to the gym and increase the amount of sweets and high calorie foods that will leave us looking for a quick weight loss solution come January 1st.
Instead of going full trash panda mode and eating everything in sight and then trying to look like Bruce Lee (this might date me a bit) come Jan 1, lets be smart and come up with a plan ahead of time.
Here is what I would recommend to a client for this week:
Monday-Wednesday: Get a workout in every day. Eat clean on these days. Try to limit the amount of processed foods and sugary drinks. Eat a normal amount of calories for you, meaning don’t try to starve yourself these days to save up all your calories for Thursday. This will lead to binge eating.
Thursday/Thanksgiving Day: Get about 60 minutes of fitness in first thing in the morning. This can be a full workout in the gym, a run, a weighted vest walk, or anything else that challenges you and gets you out of breath for an hour. This will help set the tone for the day that you are a healthy person and not a failure.
I say this because, most people will overeat and make poor choices and then struggle to get back in the gym because they feel like they failed. This will start the spiral of taking the holidays off and then starting back up on Jan 1.
Don’t skip breakfast. Have some good protein and 2 cups of produce. You don’t want to go to the family lunch/dinner starving.
For lunch/dinner, start with meat. Then have some sort of produce with it. Then, go ahead and enjoy whatever it is you really love to eat on this day. It can be stuffing or some other side dish, or it can also be a piece of pie. You don’t have to be a super hero today and eat perfect! Don’t be a trash panda either, though. 🙂
Friday: Get right back on track with eating healthy and getting your workouts in.
One day won’t ruin your fitness or your weight loss journey. I tell people to look at the holiday as just doing damage control. Do what you can that day and then get right back to business the next day.
Enjoy the time with family! Happy Holidays!
