Staying Fit During the Holidays

The holidays are a wonderful time of year that everyone looks forward to. Between Thanksgiving and New Years people get together for family dinners, end of the year celebrations, and office Holiday parties. While all of the camaraderie, joy, and happiness is a much needed part of our lives, it is important to remain vigilant and committed to our year long fitness goals.

During the holidays the average American can gain up to 1lb – 2lbs. While this may not seem like a lot, over time 5 or 10 years this can accumulate to as much as 20lbs of weight gain. Since it is such a small amount it may even go unnoticed for several years in a row. At The Camp we wanted to give you some holiday tips to be mindful of during the holiday season. We encourage all of our franchise owners to offer holiday programs, nutrition seminars, and daily motivational posts on social media to bring the holiday weight gain to the forefront of everyone’s mind.

Here are 5 easy tips to remember during this holiday season.

5 Tips for the Holidays:

1. Portion Control – This is a big one. When it’s time to sit down at the table ensure that you are eating well balanced meals using your FTDI guidelines. Turkey, potatoes, green beans, and more are all great stables of a healthy and balanced diet. However, even items that are good for you can be detrimental to your diet when consumed in large amounts.

2. Don’t miss workouts – While the holidays can be a busy time of the year, just like hectic work weeks, we have to make time for the holidays. Schedule time during the course of the holidays, just like you do to watch football, cook the turkey, or pick up relatives from the airport. Staying active and fit will raise your metabolism, reduce stress, and help melt away the pounds.

3. Everything in moderation – The last thing we want you to do is deprive yourself from the finer things in life. No one expects you to have Thanksgiving dinner and skip the pumpkin pie or whatever your family tradition is. However, we have to remember that we must take a sensible approach and have a small piece of pie as the holidays are filled with multiple parties and there’s likely to be dessert at all of them.

4. Don’t punish yourself – Don’t beat yourself up because you had a piece of pie, an extra cookie or whatever. Just because you had dessert doesn’t mean you need to have a 3 hour marathon workout to “punish” yourself for something not healthy. Remember, if you stay consistent with your workouts, use portion control, and limit sweets you’ll be just fine and don’t need to beat yourself up over it.

5. Stay mentally fit – The holidays can be a stressful time of the year with full households, extra obligations (parties/cooking), hosting out of town relatives, etc. Take some time each day (15 mins) to reset your mental state, be thankful for this time with family and friends. A quick 15 min mental break where you lay down in a quiet place and relax your mind will do wonders for your mental state.

Now about those workouts. We understand that you might not be able to make it into your Camp location every day. The good news is that The Camp Milwaukie has some great ideas on how to stay fit no matter where you are, even at home. Check out their segment on Channel 6 Koin AM Extra. Helen and her team do a great job of providing workout guidelines for anyone and everyone regardless of your fitness level. Feel free to get the entire family involved in a post turkey workout.