Surviving The Holidays With Balance

A lot of people dread the holiday season and stress out over the fact that there are parties, social gatherings, dinners, etc., and they all involve FOOD!

This should most certainly NOT be a time of stress for you and if you ARE stressed about this type of thing I would encourage you to do a reality check.

This is a great time of year!

Is your body fat percentage THAT important that you have to either skip out on some of the once-a-year festivities? Or stress out about the food? Or dread the compensatory cardio (doesn’t work by the way; like at all) you “have to do” the next day?

Bueller? Where’s the balance? You have NONE if you fall into this category. How do you get it? You make the DECISION to participate and ENJOY yourself. You give yourself permission. YOU are in charge. Balance won’t just fall into your lap. You have to make conscious decisions yourself if balance is your goal. YOU have to create it.

Here’s the other thing. The period between Thanksgiving (US) and New Year’s does not have to be one big holiday blur. I mean really, between now and January 1, the very large majority of your meals can still very easily be on plan and compliant. You don’t have to just throw in the December towel.

Enjoy your holidays, participate, eat up when you have your get togethers, etc. All your other non-party meals? Stay on plan!

Most people just resign themselves to the fact that the holidays = weight gain. It certainly doesn’t have to be that way and you certainly don’t have to diet and miss out on food festivities in order to prevent any holiday weight gain either.

Control the meals you can control which let’s be honest, is most of them and you can add to that, control the portion sizes of the meals you can’t control (if you want to that is) or heck, just say, whatever, let’s eat!

Yes, most of us won’t make the same progress we could this coming month but so what? Maybe consider just letting yourself off the hook and relax a bit on the expectations you place on yourself this holiday season. In addition, I think the time around Christmas is a GREAT time to take some time out of the gym. Most people don’t really appreciate the benefits of a week off from training here and there, and with holiday gym hours, the time right around Christmas is a great time to just chill out and take a week off.

Hopefully this resonates with some of you and you put my advice into practice this holiday season. Trust me, it’ll be much more enjoyable. Balance is fun.