Festive fitness
Fitness expert Karl Henry shares some tips with Claire O’mahony for an indulgent Christmas that won’t steer you too far into unhealthy habits
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. But we all know that the potential for December being the unhealthiest time of the year is great too. Where to start? It’s not necessarily the ginormous meal on December 25 but the eating and drinking in the weeks leading up to it, and a erwards. Add a disinclination to exercise in the cold and dark winter months, and it all adds up to feeling sluggish.
But it doesn’t have to be like this, according to personal trainer and Operation Transformation adviser Karl Henry.
“It depends how you approach it,” he says. “ere are a lot more parties and food but, actually, there’s a lot of downtime too, which is nice. It can be a time to re ect upon the year that you’ve had; the things you’ve done that you wanted to do, the things you haven’t done
I have to move and do something, then I’ll cook Christmas dinner
from a health perspective; the things you may want to change next year.”
December’s usually hectic social calendar can be di cult to navigate, Karl concedes.
“e key thing is prioritising those big nights out. We all have them – I have them, everyone else has them. But some people will do the excess on it, and they’ll have two weeks of big nights out, and that will turn into poor health, obviously,” he says.
“So, you pick your big ones, and you know what those nights out are going to be. You schedule it over the course of those couple of weeks and then you build around it and you get exercise done on days that aren’t the big nights out. ere are ways to manage it, but a lot of people really struggle at this time of the year, in terms of just trying to stay healthy.”
e father of two admits that he tends to train more over the festive period. “at sounds very ‘he would say that…’ but that’s generally what happens because work is a bit quieter,” he explains. “I take about two-anda-half to three weeks o and I train over Christmas.”
But the tness expert, whose podcast
Real Health with Karl Henry won the Best Wellbeing category at the recent Irish Podcast Awards, stresses that Christmas should be about pleasure and happiness.
“It’s the time for celebration, for friendship, for joy, so you should enjoy yourself. You’re not going to do that much damage in three to four days, that can’t be undone within a week’s worth of normal eating and exercise the following week.”
Karl and his family relocated to West Cork from Dublin last year. Although it means a bit more travelling for him because of work, he’s smitten with the place. “It’s wonderful, it really is,” he says. “It’s a great place to live – active and outdoorsy and healthy.”
He will start his Christmas Day with some exercise in the morning and, more than likely, he’ll do a Christmas Day swim (he does a lot of sea-swimming).
“I have to move and do something,” he says. “en I’ll cook Christmas dinner. I quite like cooking, I’ve gotten into that, and I’ve Neven (Maguire) and Jamie Oliver books to guide me. en, we’ll just hang out and watch some movies in the evening. It’s calm, it’s quiet and it’s lovely.”
His weakness is a chocolate Mikado – or several of them. “ey’re my favourite thing about Christmas. I love them. We only get them at Christmas, thank God, because they’re addictive.”
If you’re feeling like skipping exercise at this time of year because it’s cold and dreary, Karl advises that there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad gear.
“Preparation for winter is important so it’s having runners that are winter-ready; a good waterproof rain jacket, and getting sportsbased fabrics because cotton-based fabrics are heavy, get sweaty really quickly and they’re horrible to exercise in,” he notes.
It can also get you through what can be a di cult time of year. “It’s darker, it’s colder: if ever there’s a time that you need to move, it’s those winter months because you can feel better. You can have more energy; you can be stronger; you can manage the impact of the reduction in light because you’re active; ideally you’ll surround yourself with nature in some shape or form. So you’re boosting your mood and productivity levels, and reducing your stress levels. at’s one reason Operation Transformation is so powerful: we get people moving and then they feel great.”
e key thing for Karl at Christmas is that it’s embraced as a period in which we can all take stock. “It’s a great time for people to re ect, to stop, to pause, and that’s what I do. And then, just enjoy yourself because life is too short.”