Fitness Friday – The 6 Things I’m Doing to Survive the Holiday Season

Happy Friday. I’m trying something a little different today in what I’m calling Fitness Fridays. Every week I’ll write about something Health and Fitness related to help us start kicking even more ass. I love talking about this stuff and want to share it with you. Feel free to let me know what you think. Let’s begin.

It’s that time of the year again. The Thanksgiving feasts are done but the holiday season is far from over. Between holiday parties, Christmas, Hanaka, New Years, and general meetups with friends it can be can be an enriching time, foodwise.

The cold doesn’t help either. As the weather gets colder we have a tendency to turn into bears and want to pack on the weight for hibernation. The food and the weather turn this time into a perfect storm shitshow for being healthy.

The next several weeks are about survival. Though it would be nice to lose a couple of pounds during this time, the goal is about keeping the belt at the same notch. We can break out our “holiday pants” on special occasion but should leave them in the closet on the day to day. If we set ourselves up right we will be ready for New Year with some sustainable habits.

Here are the 6 things I’m working on this holiday season while in survival mode:

Make one small change: How many of us have decided to start a new diet and within a month, a week, or a day throw it out the window saying we suck at diets? I know I have and, unfortunately, continue to even now. The problem I find is I’m trying to do too much all at once. I want to do paleo and intermittent fasting and only eat 1600 calories and not snack, and on and on and on. No shit I keep failing. I’m trying to do too much all at once. What sticks the longest for me is making small changes my diet, little by little, either by cutting out something I shouldn’t eat or by adding something I should.

When I first tried this my first small change was eating 30 grams of protein for breakfast. I’ll have more on this in a minute, but the important part it gave me a healthy foundation for the day. I eat 4-5 scrambled eggs and 3 pieces of toast each day to keep the foundation going.

“Don’t you get bored. I could never do that. I would get so sick of eating the same things over and over.” Sure there are moments when I mix things up a little bit by having cereal or French Toast for breakfast. I’m not perfect but I try to have as many protein packed morning as possible.

Remember this way my small change which got the ball rolling for me. Everyone’s change will be different and need to be tailored to the individual. All that matters is it is sustainable.

Minus 1 Rule: Bingeing is something we all love to do. Why have one when you can have seven, am I right? This tend to be how people, myself included, go through life. Hell, I’ll go to a restaurant and will pound 3-5 sodas without thinking because the refills are free. Then instead of only drinking the 30-40 grams of sugar, I’m into the hundreds. This combined with sitting most of the day leads to the sugar turning into excess weight. This can happen with extra helpings at dinner, alcoholic beverages, cookies, desserts (the second “s” is because you always want more than one), or whatever else is thrown at us.

One of the things I’m trying this holiday season is what I’m calling the -1 (Minus 1) Rule. Whenever I’m eating or drinking something and I think to myself, “Self, you could have just one more,” I’ll stop right there. Normally, I’ll go the extra mile and have an additional soda, cookie, helping of pie because I can (Hey, I’m no quitter and this body didn’t happen by accident). This will hopefully prevent me from feeling stuffed or the feeling of regret I’m left with by having just… one… more… Remember baby steps.

The 30 in 30 Rule: One of the tips Tim Ferriss gives in his book, the 4 Hour Body, is eat 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of walking up, each day. This does two important things for you body. First, it reduces the white carbohydrate cravings we have in the morning. Second, our body is in repair mood while we sleep and often dips into our fat stores for this maintenance. By eating carbs in the morning our body’s switch from burning fat to burning the sugar in carbs. Eat protein continues the fat burning process throughout the day.

Eggs, beans, spinach, bacon, sausage, and protein shakes are the easiest way to meet this requirement. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Like I said earlier, I eat 4-5 eggs in the morning. If I’m feeling really crazy I’ll add spinach and/or beans to the mix as well. Bacon and sausage are always a nice way to spice things up as well. The important thing is to keep our body’s fat burning furnaces going by skipping out on the white carbohydrates. Worried about not having enough time to make eggs in the morning? Tim Ferriss has a solution for that too.

Smaller Plates/Serving Utensils: I recently listened to an interview with Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating and Slim by Design, and he had some help tips we should use every day, and especially during the holidays. Two of the easiest ways to reduce the amount of food we could eat during those big holiday meals and parties are using smaller dinner plates and smaller serving utensils. Sound simple and impossible? Brian would disagree. Basically, what these two little tricks do is deceive our brains into thinking we are eating more than normal.

It also takes our body about 30 minutes to start realizing it is full. Using smaller plates and serving utensils forces us to take more time to eat. The longer we take to eat, the more likely we will eat less because our bodies realize it is full. Eating less food, means eating less calories. HOORAY FOR SCIENCE!

Get Moving/10,000 steps: This has become very popular since the birth of the FitBit but it’s not difficult to see why. One of the biggest issues many of us face is we sit at a desk all day decreasing our energy throughout the day, making us lethargic. Soon we spend all of our time sitting down instead of moving, the way God intended it. Moving the body helps get the blood flowing, raises our endorphins, and burns calories. Walking at least 10,000 steps has us going about 4-5 miles per day. Not too shabby.

“Joe, I don’t have time to take a 4-5 mile walk every day. I have a life and things to do, man!” First, you probably do have time but I’m not getting into this here. Second, I’m not saying to set aside specific time for a 5 mile walk each day. It’s the holiday season and we’re in survival mode not starting our New Year’s Fitness Resolutions early. What I am saying is to get up once an hour, or so, at work to walk around or take the stair instead of the elevator or take a few extra laps around the mall while you are shopping. These don’t need to be 1-2 hour long walks on a treadmill, the elliptical, or around the block but small repeated movements throughout the day. Moving our bodies throughout the day will not only help make us healthier but happier as well.

Be kind to yourself: We live in a very pass or fail society which can be extremely difficult on our psyche. We tend to be extremely hard on ourselves when we set goals but don’t meet them. We feel like failures and get frustrated because we “know” better. Of course we do but it doesn’t mean we aren’t going to stumble or fall. Every moment of every day is a chance to start over. If we don’t like the decision we just made then make a different one the next time around.

“I shouldn’t have drank that fourth beer.” Stop drinking and have water. “I shouldn’t have eaten that third slice of pie.” We can remember how we feel right now and skip the extra slice next time. If we forget next time we take a deep breath, forgive ourselves, and try again next time.

This doesn’t give us carte blanche to go nuts because “we can always forgive ourselves.” This isn’t the Catholic Church. The goal is to work to be better but not kick ourselves when we are down. We take a deep breath and try again. The more we try, the more likely it is for the habit to stick.

Voila. There they are. These are just a few ways to help get survive the holiday season without feeling like we gained 30 lbs. They may not seem like much but again we aren’t looking for radical. We are looking for simple. Try one of them or try them all and I wish you luck this season. We’ll see you on the other side.