PLANNING IS KEY DURING HOLIDAYS
With the excesses of the holiday season quickly approaching, start your wellness and fitness strategies before it’s too late. Helen Vanderburg offers 10 tips to help get through the festivities while maintaining your fitness, your weight and your sanity.
1 The buffet Holiday buffets are a temptation and can quickly add calories to your daily intake. Standing at the buffet table and nibbling throughout the event is dangerous territory; you lose track of what you’ve consumed.
The next time the buffet table is calling, try these tips. Survey the buffet table before making your selections. Choose only your favourite items. Put them on a plate so you can see just how much you have. Once you’ve made your selections, walk away from the table. Turn your back on it and get involved in a conversation.
2 Holiday rituals Make activities part of your holiday rituals. Commit to organizing activities at your holiday events. Go skating, tobogganing or for a family walk. If this doesn’t go over well with your guests, try playing charades. It will get people off the couch and moving. It will also make you laugh and laughing is good for your soul and health.
3 Move If you can’t fit a formal workout into your schedule, just make an effort to move more throughout the day. Offer to shovel the snow, wash the dishes by hand, walk the dog, take the stairs, park further away and even fidget. Every little bit counts. You may not gain fitness but you will burn calories.
4 Schedule exercise Knowing your schedule will be hectic, you should plan your workouts in advance. Schedule them just as you would any other appointment and make them a priority.
5 Time efficient Rather than bailing out of a workout because you will need to commit an hour, change your expectations. Even 15 minutes is better then nothing. If you work at a higher intensity for a shorter period of time you might get the same results. Try a short intense interval workout.
6 Law of diminishing returns Did you know the first bite always tastes the best. Our brain chemistry signals “pleasure” when we eat something we enjoy. However, scientists have found we receive less pleasure the more we eat a food. Ask yourself if you really want it or are you just relating it to pleasure? Then have a little and see if that satisfies your desire.
Often, a little is all we need. So rather than feeling like you must eat a full serving of dessert at a holiday meal, take a bite or two and receive 90 per cent of the pleasure at 10 per cent of the calories.
7 Liquid calories Beware of these, especially alcohol, because they can add up quickly. Alcohol also tends to lower your inhibitions, making you more susceptible to poor nutritional choices. Instead of reaching for the bubbly, rotate a non-caloric drink like water or spritzer into the mix.
8 Hydrate Keep your water bottle with you at all times. When you feel hunger or the urge to reach for a treat, drink a glass of water first and see if it satisfies your need. While water needs vary from person to person, you could aim for eight, eight-ounce (227-millilitre) glasses of water each day. Buy a 64-oz (1.9-litre) water jug, fill it in the morning and aim to finish it by the end of the day. 9 Breathe Deep-breathing exercises decrease anxiety, lower blood pressure and decrease heart rate. The holiday season can bring on stress and, if left unattended, your stress level can create havoc on your body. Deep-breathing exercises can be done anywhere at any time. If your flight gets cancelled due to bad weather, just breathe. And notice how your anxiety level goes down.
10 Forward bend This last tip may seem a little strange but try it. In yoga, forward-bending postures are used to calm the body. The body’s physiology changes when you forward bend as the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for calming the body, is stimulated. If you have ever felt nauseous and were advised to put your head down between your knees, this is one of the reasons why.
Try it and see how you feel. The holiday season may not be a time to lose weight, but it doesn’t have to be a time to lose health. The key is to go into the holidays with a plan. Helen Vanderburg is a fitness trainer, and motivational and corporate wellness speaker.