Post 50voicesHealth Post50staying fit over the holidays

5 Tips For Keeping Your Fitness Plan On Track During The Holidays

Yes, it CAN be done.
Rashelle Brown

Ready or not, the holidays are here. With all the feasting and shopping and party-going and year-end budgeting, it can be tough to keep up a regular exercise routine.

But research shows that taking just a week or two off from exercise can erase months of favorable metabolic gains, and gaining just 1 percent of your body weight can have serious health implications.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take a lot of activity to prevent both of those things from happening. So by developing these five small, but effective, habits, you can survive the holidays with your health and fitness intact:

1. Schedule Your Workouts

Sitting down on the weekend and planning your workouts for the week ahead can be the most effective 15 minutes you spend on your health and fitness. By writing your workouts into your schedule, you’ll be more likely to regard them as protected time and actually do them.

Just stay flexible by checking in a couple of times during the week to make adjustments as soon as you know about things that have popped up. This lets you create a back-up plan for those extra busy days ,rather than being caught off guard and having to ditch your workout.

2. Put Exercise First

By far, the best way to ensure that you don’t miss a workout is to do it first thing in the morning. Not only does this guarantee that unforeseen interruptions in your schedule won’t interfere with exercise, but studies have shown that our will power is higher early in the day before we’ve had to exert a lot of self-control.

Devoting the first 20 to 30 minutes of each day to exercise not only makes it more likely to happen, but an early morning workout could help you fight food cravings throughout the day, too.

3. Recruit an Exercise Buddy

Another great way to motivate yourself over the holidays is to make a pact with a friend or group of friends. Even if you don’t workout together, checking in with someone else daily will make you think twice about skipping a session.

If your friends are all couch potatoes, head online to find an accountability partner. Around the holidays especially, social media is bursting with workout challenges and support networks.

If you can’t find anything in your social media feed, check out the forums on fitness-oriented sites and apps, like MyFitnessPal and Spark People.

4. Take Advantage of Seasonal Offerings

Your local gym is another great place to find inspiration, and it’ll almost certainly be offering specials on membership fees, class packages and monthly rates during the holidays.

If you’re lucky enough to live in a town with a few competing fitness centers, you may be able to enjoy free trial periods at multiple facilities. Not only can this practically get you through the whole season on the cheap, but it’s the perfect way to compare facilities and find the one that offers the best mix of value and services.

5. Plan Ahead for Travel

If you’ll be spending the holidays away from home, it’s imperative that you have a quick and easy travel workout in your repertoire.

This needn’t be your typical high-quality workout to be effective. A simple routine consisting of three to five exercises you can do with no equipment in a very small space is enough to keep you on track until you can get back to your usual routine.

The five exercises I suggest for my clients are one-legged balance stands, push-ups (modified if necessary), walking lunges, bicycle crunches and prone back extensions (Supermans). Doing two or three circuits with little rest between exercises will give you a cardiovascular workout as well as maintain your muscular strength and endurance.

And Squeeze in Mini-Workouts

One more thing: Because you might not get to exercise every day during the holidays, or the workouts you do get in might not be as robust as usual, try to focus on sneaking in short bursts of activity as often as you can throughout each day.

These “activity snacks” can be as simple as a trip up and down the stairs in your home, a walk around the block with the grandkids or a few deep knee bends during the commercial breaks when you’re watching football.

Studies have shown that walking just over a mile a day or doing three four-minute bouts of high-intensity exercise per week may be enough to help you maintain your weight and fitness level. By using the tips provided here, you should have ample time and motivation to do that much or more this holiday season.

Also from Next Avenue:

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Before You Go

6 Exercises That Improve Your Sex Life
Lunge Matrix(01 of06)
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What it works: Hip flexibility, glutes

Leads to better sex because: The larger the range of motion in your hips, the more easily you can get into and hold any position you and your partner think of, especially ones where you're putting your legs up high or reaching down low, says Sari Locker, PhD, a sexuality educator at Columbia University. Having strong glutes helps you generate power if you're the more active partner in any position.

How to do it: Picture yourself standing in the middle of a clock, with 12 o'clock on the floor in front of you and 6 o'clock directly behind you, says Susan Stanley, an Equinox trainer. Step forward with your right foot into a lunge position, with your foot at 12 o'clock. Keep your weight in your right heel, and push off of it to return to starting position. Do the same thing with your right foot at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 o'clock, then switch to your left foot and lunge at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 o'clock. Once you feel comfortable with just your body weight, you can add dumbbells to increase the resistance and build more strength. For a more advanced challenge, you can increase your speed (while keeping the correct form) to add a cardio boost and improve your stamina for those long sessions. (credit:Illustration: Davidy Wyffels)
Halos and Full-Circle Planks(02 of06)
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What they work: Shoulders, arms and core

Leads to better sex because: Any position where you need to brace yourself against something (headboard, wall, kitchen counter) or hold up your own body weight requires a strong core and a strong upper body, says Locker.

How to do Halos: Grab a medium-weight dumbbell and stand with your feet shoulder width apart, core tight. Lift the weight over your head and slowly circle it around your head like you're tracing a large halo. Keep your back flat when you have the weight lifted—don't let it arch. If you feel wobbly, you can get into a split stance for more stability, says Stanley, with your feet shoulder width apart but your right foot about a foot in front of your left (or vice versa). This is a great one for men to do too, especially if they're typically on top. Couples workout, anyone? (credit:Illustration: David Wyffels)
(03 of06)
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How to do Full-Circle Planks: Start in a plank position on either your hands or your forearms. Hold for 30 seconds, then switch to a right-side plank, where your body is turned to the left and you're supporting yourself with your right hand or forearm. Hold for 30 seconds. In a controlled motion, flip over into a backward plank, supporting yourself with your hands and facing up toward the ceiling instead of down toward the floor. Your shoulders should be over your wrists and legs should be straight. (If flipping over is too difficult, it's fine to come out of the side plank and reposition yourself into a backward plank.) Hold again for 30 seconds, then switch to a left-side plank and hold for another 30 seconds. Once you feel comfortable with those holds, try adding some hip movement. You can move your hips from side to side in any of the planks or move your hips in a circle if you're up for a challenge, says Stanley. The key is to move just your hips—try to keep the rest of your body still. (credit:Illustration: David Wyffels)
Pelvic Clock(04 of06)
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What it works: Pelvic-floor muscles, core

Leads to better sex because: Strengthening your pelvic-floor muscles can help you feel more pleasure and minimize pain during sex. The classic Kegel calls for isolating your pelvic-floor muscles—here, you'll be working your core at the same time.

How to do it: Sit on a physio ball with your hands on your hips, abs and pelvic-floor muscles squeezed, and feet flat on the floor. Keeping your upper body and your legs as still as possible, use your abs to move your hips forward and backward between 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock, then between 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock. You won't get the pelvic-floor-muscle benefits if you don't make a conscious effort to tighten them—you should feel as though you're squeezing a tampon the whole time. Next, move your hips in a circle, completing one go-around then moving back in the other direction. If you don't have a physio ball, stand and mimic a hula-hooping motion, which works the same muscles, says Stanley. (If you happen to have a hula-hoop in your house, all the better!) (credit:Illustration: David Wyffels)
Glute Bridge(05 of06)
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What it works: Glutes and pelvic-floor muscles

Leads to better sex because: Your glutes power any thrusting motion, says Locker, plus you're strengthening your pelvic floor again.

How to do it: Lie on the floor with your hands by your side, feet on the floor and knees bent at a 45-degree angle. Squeeze your glutes to lift your butt and lower back off the floor and contract those pelvic-floor muscles at the same time. Lift until there's a straight line between your stomach and your knees, hold for 1 second, then return to start. You can add difficulty by holding dumbbells on top of your hips, or you can try a one-legged bridge, says Stanley, where one leg is pointed toward the ceiling, foot flexed, and you're driving your heel toward the sky as you lift your butt and back off the floor. (credit:Illustration: David Wyffels)
Wall Sits(06 of06)
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What it works: Quads and glutes

Leads to better sex because: You'll have more power in standing positions and more control over your hips in any position.

How to do it: Stand with your back against a wall, feet about shoulder width apart a foot or so in front of you. Slide your back down the wall, walking your feet out farther if necessary. The goal is to get your knees to a 90-degree angle while keeping them directly over your ankles. Hold that position until you feel a burn in your thighs, then adjust your feet so they're slightly farther apart. Hold again until you feel a burn, then take your feet a little wider one more time, and hold. If you need more of a challenge, Stanley recommends doing one-legged wall sits, where you lift one foot off the ground once you're in position, hold, then switch legs. (credit:Illustration: David Wyffels)
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