The holidays are a joyous time for a different kind of growth and development then the kind I spend each day preaching to my clients. It’s a time to spend with family, to grow relationships, be thankful for the year behind and to celebrate the season and the year to come. If you’ve been working hard all year it’s ok to indulge through the holidays as your body will be quite forgiving once you resume your regular exercise and nutritional plan in the new year.

A few tips, warnings and lectures for holiday survival:

Enjoy Your Christmas Party

Surviving the Christmas Party – Though I can’t do anything for you regarding the stories circulating the office come Monday morning I can give you a couple of tips on how to do the least damage during your evening of reveling. First alcohol is a nervous toxin, there are no ifs, ands or buts, it’s bad for you and it’s bad for fitness. The less the better but any which way anything more than 2oz is going to have a dramatic effect on your metabolism and the more you consume the longer you will be affected. What you can do to aid your recovery is ensure you consume at least 3-4L of water over the 3-4 days that follow to aid your liver and kidneys as they try to break down the alcohol. A detoxification program and the use of heat therapy like saunas and event hot tubs may also help to break the alcohol down faster. Though these methods don’t repair the damage caused they will allow you to get back on track faster. Second, eliminate sugared sodas from your cocktails, order them with diet soda or try drinking them with water. Sugared sodas are a primary culprit as far as unbalancing blood sugar and causing major insulin spikes that trigger cravings for all those things we love and know we shouldn’t eat. There is plenty of opportunity for Christmas goodies that force us to consume excess sugar so avoid it where you can.

Plenty of Temptations

Holiday Desserts – There are so many wonderful Christmas treats it makes your mouth water thinking about them, nanimo bars are my personal favorite. It would be cruel and unlikely to try to persuade most to steer clear of these treats entirely. Instead try to make sure that you have consumed a solid food meal high in protein no more than 30 minutes before you dive into the goodies. If this is simply not possible than force yourself to consume two large 8oz glasses of water, even better would be both. Obviously this will ensure your stomach is not empty and you won’t consume as much but more importantly this also changes the rate of gastric emptying (digestion) and ultimately how quickly our blood sugar rises causing triglyceride storage (fat conversion). If you can avoid the big insulin spikes you will find it much easier to resume your better eating habits once the holidays conclude.

Activity – It is going to be a cold winter they say, with lots of snow. This provides great opportunity to be regularly active through the holidays from the must do of shoveling sidewalks to many other activities like building snowmen, cross county skiing, snowboarding, skating etc. Don’t let winter slow you down.

From our fitness family at One-to-1 Fitness Merry Christmas and best wishes for an exciting 2010!

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