Can you believe it’s less than 3 weeks until Christmas ?! 🎄🎄🎄
The festive season is well and truly upon as and we’re also in the final week of the #6in4Challenge and the last Challenge for 2019!
We know many of our current members are feeling a bit nervous about the holidays and we’re sure many of you are also trying to figure out the best way to stay in shape and not gain weight over this tricky time filled with lots of celebrations and social activities (often involving food and drinks! 😉😬)
Since our next Challenge doesn’t start until January 2020, we wanted to share with you our best advice on staying on track with your heath and fitness goals over the December to January silly season! But of course, we want you to still have fun and joy this time of year also!
Our top 5 tips to get ahead for 2020 and not ruin your results over the Christmas holidays!
1. Get active! When you’ve got a little extra time on your hands, it’s the perfect opportunity to either spend some time outdoors, hit the gym and get your body moving! Because December involves a lot more social events than normal (that typically include a few drinks and extra trimmings 😋🍖), we’d recommend perhaps training a little more than usual during this time, especially if you know you’ll be indulging that little bit extra!
The best way to train? First thing in the morning before the festive lunches, brunches and dinners, so that you get it out of the way and can’t make excuses later! Plus, once you’ve trained for the day, you’re more likely to be more mindful of the food and drink choices you make later on! 🤗🤔
2. When working out, focus on big compound lifts and time-effective training. Christmas and the New Year is a time to be spent with family and friends, so you don’t want to be wasting hours in the gym – and also, you don’t need to, to get results! Even aiming for 30 minutes of daily activity will be enough to maintain your progress over the holidays. Focus on heavy squats, deadlifts and bench press, which incorporate all your major muscle groups and help to elevate your metabolism before your next main meal! Also, you can try adding in some metabolic conditioning, HIIT style workouts with maximum effort and minimal rest periods to save on time!
3. Drink more water and choose your drinks wisely. It’s important to stay hydrated over this period as hunger can often be confused with thirst. Be sure to have a glass of water before every meal and if drinking alcohol, space out your drinks with a glass of water in between. Staying well hydrated will also help you when it comes to your training and prevent risk of injury!
When it comes to choosing alcoholic beverages, try to stick to the lower calorie drink options – such as clear spirits with sugar-free sodas (if you must) or a glass of wine or champagne. These drinks are typically around 100-200 calories versus some other highly calorific cocktails like an espresso martini, margarita or pina colada, which can set you back over 500+ calories! 🥂🍷🍾
4. Protein with every meal. If you’ve been a Best Body Co. client for a while, you’ll know we always talk about the importance of protein in your diet to help you build and maintain muscle. Protein is especially important if you’re trying to lose fat and maintain muscle at the same time! If you aim to have at least a fist-size portion of protein at every meal during the holiday season, it will help you feel fuller for longer by reducing your appetite and hunger levels; it will help reduce cravings for highly calorie dense, sugary and fatty foods (no one ever binged on a whole roast chicken or two, right? 🤔🤪); a high protein diet can also boost fat burning and increase metabolism due to the thermic effect of food.
5. Taste and enjoy anything, but don’t eat EVERYTHING! Enjoy this season of celebration and enjoy some of the foods that you might not regularly have in your everyday diet. We don’t want to be the grinch who stole Christmas 👹 at Best Body Co., and food is one of life’s many great pleasures! So we firmly believe in balance and enjoyment – taste and eat whatever you want, don’t ban certain foods from your diet, but just don’t go crazy on the amounts of all of these highly palatable foods. Taste, but don’t demolish! You don’t have to finish everything on your plate! Be mindful, have small servings of your favourite foods, the food will not disappear! Plus, any leftovers, you can also pack away for the next day to help you with the holiday shopping sales 😉 (to give you some energy for that!) P.s. this is another great opportunity to increase your N.E.A.T. (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) and get your daily step-count up over the holidays!
We hope you find some of these tips useful over the holidays! And if you’re looking for help to give you a kick start and accelerate your results in the 2020 New Year, our next #6in4Challenge officially starts on 11th January!
Merry Christmas & Stay Strong!
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