Fitness, Fat Loss, Food, and Fun: Your Guide to Staying Fit While Enjoying the Holidays

The holiday season is upon us!

I love this time of year. Family and friends, celebrations, parties, the decorations, traditions, and of course, the food.

While it’s a fun and happy time for many, it can also be a challenging time. Especially when you’re trying to get fit or stay fit. There are indulgent meals, social gatherings, and busy schedule. And if you have little ones at home, it seems like someone is sick every other week through winter! All of these things can disrupt your routine.

It can be difficult to strike a balance between enjoying all the festivities while not compromising your health goals.

Many start to get into the “I’ll start at the new year” mindset. You put off working toward any goals until January 1st.

But, what if you didn’t do that this year? What if you did it differently this year? What if you took this time to work on your goals? You’ll be ahead of everyone else when the new year hits! What would it look like on January 1st if you didn’t procrastinate? Think about how you would feel??

You might be saying to yourself, “well, how am I supposed to work toward my fat loss or fitness goal when I have all these holiday parties, dinners, and celebrations that will have food, treats, and drinks?”

Or, “I don’t want to sacrifice the parties and gatherings. Or not indulging in my favorite holiday treats.”

These concerns are VALID. But, don’t worry because I’m going to give you my best tips for working towards your goals during the Holiday season WHILE enjoying all of the Holiday fun, food, and treats!

Set Realistic Goals

Set realistic goals. It’s probably not be the best time to try to lose as much weight as possible as quickly as possible. Or to train for a fitness competition or any other extreme fitness goal/event.

You need to set realistic goals and adjust expectations. If you have a weight loss goal, know that it’s going to be a little more difficult to lose weight. Not impossible, it’ll just take a little bit more time.

There are basically 3 diet and fitness approaches you can take during the holiday season (in order of preference):

1. Strict and Rigid

There’s no deviating from your workouts or diet. You NEVER miss a workout. Had a late night party, you wake up and get your workout in anyway. Christmas morning? You’re going to get your run in before anyone wakes up! You bring all your own food in tupperware to dinners and swear off all holiday treats.

While this can bring you the most weight loss, you’ll also sacrifice the joy of indulging in the holidays! Being so strict and rigid with your diet can also lead to a binge later down the road. I don’t recommend this approach because, unless you’re training for a fitness competition, there is absolutely no reason to be this strict!

2. Flexible

You stick to your workouts and diet most of the time. You take the 80/20 approach which means 80% of the time you’re on track.

This allows for more flexibility so you can enjoy your favorite meals and treats, but you aren’t overindulging every single day of the season or restricting yourself a ton. You can easily find ways to fit your favorite treats in your calorie allotment or allow for a few days of the month to be over calories.

While this approach is totally doable, especially if you do a moderate cut – it will take some sacrifice. Anytime you do a calorie deficit, you’re going to have to make some sacrifices. Which can be even more difficult during the holidays.

Which is why I love option number 3 most!

3. Maintenance

This is my favorite of all three approaches because it’s more realistic and sustainable for MOST people.

You don’t want to skip traditions or eat less and that’s OKAY. So, instead of doing a cut, move your calories up to maintenance. This way you can enjoy your favorite holiday treats and meals with no or minimal fat gain with less stress.

You might be asking, well, I thought this article was about how to get in shape or lose fat during the holidays? How am I going to do that in maintenance?

GREAT question, glad you asked. You need to know this:

Maintenance is progress.

Maintaining your current body mass doesn’t mean you aren’t making progress. It’s progress to maintain. What I really like about this option (besides the increased calories!) is that you will have an easier time putting on muscle mass. This will set you up perfectly to go into a fat loss phase come January if you choose to.

In summary, you need to:

1) make a goal (weight loss, maintenance, more muscle)

2) choose which approach is best for you and your goal.

Now that you have a goal and an approach, here are some additional tips to help you be more successful!

Plan Your Workouts and Stay Active

Incorporate activity into holiday plans. Do a turkey trot, go for a family walk after dinner, or go ice skating. Find ways to be active with your family and friends and maybe create some new traditions along the way!

My family started doing a turkey trot 4 years ago which I NEVER thought it would happen. Most of my family are not runners. They walk and we all have a blast. My dad has plans to train for it next year so he can be 1st in his age group! There’s 1 guy who keeps beating him. haha

We also love walking after meals, which is actually SO great for your digestion!

Do home workouts. You might be traveling or have people in town and can’t get to a gym. Do body weight only workouts or get some resistance bands or a TRX straps to take with you while you travel. There is a lot you can do at home!

Remember that something is better than nothing.

Exercise to feel good, get stronger, and improve your performance. NOT just to burn calories.

When you exercise purely to burn calories, you’ll gravitate to cardio because 1 hour of cardio burns more calories than 1 hour of strength training. But only doing cardio isn’t the most effective for fat loss. You need to include strength training in your routine to build muscle. That will have a huge impact on your fat loss results.

Make Healthy Food Choices Without Feeling Deprived

You can enjoy your favorite holiday foods without “ruining your progress”.

Food is more than just fuel. Food is for enjoyment, memories, and traditions with your loved ones. You should not feel guilty for partaking.

With that said, you also don’t need to eat everything in sight for 90 days straight!

There needs to be a balance. Figuring this out will take trial and error, but it will help you in the long-run, AND it can help improve your relationship with food.

Here are some quick tips:

Protein, protein, protein

Eating enough protein is important whether your goal is fat loss, maintenance, or bulking. Aim for 0.7-1 gram per pound of body weight or goal body weight.

It will help you build and maintain muscle. It also has a higher thermogenic rate so it will take longer for your body to break down and digest.

This means that you’ll stay full for longer periods of time and you’ll feel more satisfied.

In each of your meals, eat your protein first. Again, this can help you fill up on an important macro-nutrient before you move onto more hyper-palatable foods.

Build a Plate Method

When you’re at a dinner or celebration, fill your plate this way to set you up for success:

• 1/4 – 1/3 plate is protein
• 1/4 – 1/3 plate is carbs and fat
• rest of the plate is veggies

I love this method because it’s very difficult to track calories when you’re not the one preparing the meal. This is a good way to build a balanced meal while still enjoying all the food options you’d like.

Eat Slowly and Mindfully

1. It takes about 15-20 minutes for your digestive system to tell your brain that you’re satisfied. Slowing down a meal and chewing your food longer will allow this to happen before you overeat. Also, as a bonus, chewing your food longer will break it down more which will help your stomach digest it better.
2. When you slow down and become more mindful of what you’re eating–enjoying the textures, the tastes, the smells, you will savor your food and feel content with much less. So, you’ll eat less, but you’ll really enjoy what you’ve eaten.

So slow down, put the fork down between bites, enjoy the conversation and company and actually take the time to enjoy every bite.

Don’t Skip Meals

Eat What You Like, Skip What You Don’t

I know this sounds obvious, but how many times are you eating something or putting something on your plate just because it’s there.

You should enjoy this time and have the foods you love and look forward to all year.

But, if you don’t like the marshmallow sweet potatoes, green pea casserole, or jello salad, skip it!

Instead, think about what you’re putting on your plate and only put the foods you truly enjoy on it.

Manage Stress

Enjoy the Holidays

In conclusion, enjoy the holidays and know that you aren’t going to ruin your progress or fail by doing so. Even if you don’t take ANY of my advice. Because guess what? The only way to fail is if you quit and give up all together. You can always start again.

There are 365 days in a year. If you have 3 meals a day, you’re eating 1,095 meals a year.

Let’s say you have 10 holiday meals/parties during this time.

That’s less than 1% of the meals for the whole year.

10 meals out of the year will not ruin your progress.

Keep going. Don’t give up. Get back on track as soon as you can.

And if you are working on losing fat, getting stronger and more defined, click HERE to get my free Ultimate Guide to Fat Loss. It has everything you need to know plus 6 weeks of strength workouts.

And as a bonus for making it to the end of this article, here are some home workout ideas for you to include as you travel or on those busy days.

Let me know if you have any questions!

-Coach Christy

10 Minute Full Body Bodyweight:
Perform each exercise in the circuit for one full minute, resting 15 seconds between exercises. Complete the circuit 3x and you’re done.

1. 20 feet-elevated glute bridges
2. Bodyweight squat to reverse lunge for 1 minute.
3. Push-up to slow mountain climbers (incline if necessary) for 1 minute.
4. Glute bridges for 1 minute.
5. Bird dogs for 1 minute

15 Minute Full Body Bodyweight:
Set a timer for 15 minutes and perform as many rounds of the following circuit as possible with good form, resting 15 seconds between each exercise.

1. 20 alternating reverse lunges (10/side)
2. Side plank for 20 seconds each side
3. 10 plank to push-ups, alternating arms each time.

20 Minute Full Body Bodyweight:
Set a timer for 20 minutes. Perform the following circuit, doing as many rounds as possible with good form. Rest 15 to 30 seconds between exercises, and 30 to 60 seconds between each round.

1. 10 push-ups (elevate hands if needed)
2. 20 walking lunges (10/side)
3. 10 lateral bear crawls (5/direction)
4. 10 touchdown squats

25 Minute Full Body Bodyweight:
Set a timer for 25 minutes. Perform the following circuit, doing as many rounds as possible with good form. Rest 15 to 30 seconds between exercises, and 30 to 60 seconds between each round.

1. 20 bulgarian split squats (10/side)
2. 10 plank to push-up
3. 20 reverse lunges on each side (10/side)
4. 20 reverse crunches (go slow!)

30 Minute Full Body Bodyweight:
Set a timer for 30 minutes. Perform the following circuit, doing as many rounds as possible with good form. Rest 15 to 30 seconds between exercises, and 30 to 60 seconds between each round.

1. 10 walk-outs + push-up
2. 20 single-leg hip thrusts (10/side)
3. 10 dead bugs each side
4. 10 tricep dips
5. 20 lateral lunges each side (10/side)