Managing the Holidays without Sacrificing your Health and Fitness

Here's how you handle current and upcoming holiday weeks without getting all fat and sassy:

Exercise. Prioritize it.

Your nutrition may be temporarily thrown to the wind, but you can still exercise for at least 15 minutes every single day. 

Stay disciplined, do some resistance training every other day or even every day (depending how you split up your training schedule – for example, if doing full body train every other day. If doing PPL you can train just about every day). Remember, resistance training doesn't require weights – you can do bodyweight exercises or even resistance band exercises if you prefer to do so, or if you don't have access to weights during holiday weeks.

On the nutrition side of things: 

Odds are you're going to be eating larger meals. Combat this by eating fewer meals. Enjoy those big, high calorie meals. But don't snack or eat in between meals. 

Do a quick morning workout snack each day.

Here's a sample workout snack I've been doing for the past 30 days every morning within 30 minutes of waking up:

10 Hindu squats

10 glute bridges

10 frog crunches 

10 pushups

Sometimes I do 20 reps instead of 10 reps and sometimes I'll do multiple rounds of the circuit. But, the above is my minimum daily buy-in for being alive another day. 

Usually I just do the minimum. It takes only a few minutes and gets my blood pumping a little, focuses my mind, and energizes my body for the morning. 

Later in the day I do either my PPL workout of the day, or, if it's a "rest" day, I'll do one of my quick active rest day conditioning workouts.

It's amazing how connected the mind and the body are. If you're like most normal human beings, you probably wake up tired and have a sense of physical and mental fogginess. Starting the day with just a quick, easy, 2-5 minute exercise routine sharpens the mind and the body immediately. It's incredible how quickly I go from normal morning tiredness to high energy, mentally focused, and even relaxed upon finishing that quick circuit each morning. 

I recommend that everyone adopt a quick (less than 5 minutes) morning wake up exercise routine. It's gotta be quick and repeatable, though. Don't be a hero. If your routine is too time consuming, energy draining, or complex, you'll never do it consistently. I've done that before in the past. We want this to become a daily habit so it's got to be simple! 

Pick exercises that are basic, enjoyable, and that don't require equipment. This is NOT the time to push sets close to failure. This is the time to simply move your body and get a very mild pump. 

This daily habit may not seem like much, but it will radically transform your mornings while keeping physical exercise a priority in your day, even if you're not a regular, traditional exercise junkie. 

Finally, take a walk every single day. Bundle up if it's cold. Aim for at least 30 minutes. 

Happy Thanksgiving!