Holiday Goals

We are very quickly approaching the holiday season…my favorite time of year. I love all the colors, smells, and decorations. It’s a time of celebration, which means parties, delightful food and drinks and hopefully time with those you care about.

For a lot of people it also means weight gain. The schedule gets busy and workouts usually get skipped and all the extra food and drinking means tons of extra calories.

One rule I have always tried to abide by and communicate to those I work with is to just maintain during this time.

There is a good chance you will be consuming more calories then normal so don’t skip your workouts and try adding a few more in there when you can.

If you know you have a party you will need to attend, come prepared. Make sure you have eaten a healthy meal before.

Don’t skip on sleep during this time. You are much more likely to make bad decisions around food when you are tired.

If people start giving you extra sweets to take home consider donating them or sharing them with others. Just not having or keeping things around the house limits the opportunity to make bad decisions.

Consider starting a new tradition of celebrating without food. Take the family for a walk. Sign-up for a 5k. Volunteer at the Houston Food Bank. Find creative things to do that allow you to still enjoy time with those around you without consuming extra calories.

I want to be clear though and say enjoy a wonderful meal or two with your family during this time and don’t stress about calories or what you eat. There are times when you need to just need to enjoy good food without worrying about what it meals for the scale.

This holiday season I encourage you to find a happy balance of getting your workouts in, being mindful of what you eat and also finding time to enjoy the season!

On a totally different note…

One of the reasons I wanted to start this newsletter was to provide easy ways to incorporate more movement in every person’s daily routine. So I want to introduce your weekly movement motivation. Each week I will be providing a short video with some exercises you can start doing immediately. This will be a 3-5 minute routine you can follow along with or scribble down and do later. I would encourage you to try adding it to your weekly routine a couple of times a week. You will be pleasantly surprised at how much better you will feel but just adding some more mobility to your daily practice.