Fighting Holiday Fat
Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding with gravy, cookies, cakes, eggnog, chocolates. How could you say no?
Well, the good news is you don’t have to.
It really doesn’t take much to avoid substantial weight gain and maintain some of your fitness over the holidays. The keys are to plan ahead, and be mindful. In this article I am focusing mainly on the time between Christmas and New Years in Canada, and between Thanksgiving and New Years in the USA, but these principles apply to any vacation or extended period away from otherwise routine diet and exercise.
Let’s start with the weight gain, then we will tackle the fitness component.
Undoubtedly, the best part of the holiday season is gathering with your friends and family to catch up and reminisce. And what better reason than that to have a big meal and a few drinks? If you are travelling abroad, one of the most enjoyable parts of a holiday is trying the local food and drink. These things are obviously important, but we can get into a little bit of trouble if we overindulge. Here are some strategies (roughly in order of importance) to help you keep things balanced, so you don’t have quite the headache come the new year.
Stay active
There is probably more to this one than you think. Of course activity burns calories which will help prevent weight gain to some extent. But to burn the number of calories that are in a proper holiday meal would take several hours of exercise. So that is not the main reason.
Activity will also help you regulate your appetite better. It will also help you sleep better, which again will improve appetite regulation and decision making (5th eggnog?). Doing something active with your friends and family is fun too, going for a long hike or playing some rec sports is a great way to spend time and connect while blowing off some steam.
Honestly, even shopping could be a great choice if you’re into that. The time you spend on these activities is also time you are not spending mindlessly snacking while watching TV. I will talk more about physical activity in the section part of this article, where I focus on maintaining fitness.
Prioritize protein and veg
Wildcat CrossFit in Tucson, Arizona
This one is simple. Lean protein sources and veggies are healthy, low calorie density, and filling. So on a day where you have a big meal, let’s say it’s dinner, breakfast and lunch could be mostly lean protein and veggies and maybe slightly smaller than usual. This absolutely is not necessary, one day of extra calories will not make you fat. But if you are having several gatherings over the course of your holiday, it might add up more than you would like. You could also have a snack with the same composition before the big meal to make you fill up more quickly. Again, not necessary, these are just options for those that struggle with this.
Steak isn't typically very lean, but you could probably do worse.
Minimize liquid calories
I think almost everyone is aware that pop/soda is not a great choice if you are trying to lose weight or minimize weight gain. It is very easy to consume hundreds of calories without feeling full at all. Contrary to what you might see on social media these days though, diet soda (or any artificially sweetened beverage) is not necessarily unhealthy. They don’t cause cancer, and are a very good alternative for anyone trying to lose weight or save their daily calories for other things.
Many people think that the only calories in alcoholic beverages are from carbohydrates. Depending on the drink, the exact opposite could be true. Alcohol is very calorie dense on a gram per gram basis - 7kcal per gram to be precise. This is nearly double that of carbohydrate and protein (~4kcal/gram), and just short of fat (9kcal/gram). This means that any alcoholic drink has calories, even with diet soda. Again, these liquid calories are easy to consume and offer no essentially no satiation. Alcohol will also decrease inhibition and may cause some to get the munchies.
But having a few drinks is fun, and it is part of many cultural traditions. So go for it. Just make conscious decisions so you don’t regret anything.
Slow down
When you eat a meal, it takes time for the food to break down in your gut, get absorbed into the bloodstream and then influence the hormonal cascade that affects hunger/fullness signals. So if you eat very quickly, you could eat much more than you actually needed to get full. The common figure that is quoted is 20 minutes to start feeling the fullness from a meal. This will vary between individuals, but is probably a decent starting point.
Try to make the meal last a little longer. Put a little less on each spoon or fork. Slowing down and paying attention will probably make you enjoy and appreciate the food more anyway. Another strategy that Heidi (@bevibrantcoaching on instagram) recommends, it is to eat until you are about 80% full. Then after some time you might realize that it is actually enough. And guess what? If it wasn’t enough, you can eat more. But if it was too much, you can’t eat less.
Moving on to maintaining activity level and fitness.
Using chopsticks can really slow you down if you're not a pro.
I can think of three main barriers to exercise that are of increased significance during the holidays:
Time
This is probably the most common reason given for not exercising outside of holidays as well. I think most of the time, this reasoning is probably illegitimate. Not because the reporter is lying and not actually very busy, but because they don’t know how quickly or simply they could get some exercise. I think actually the time when this is most likely to be true is during certain holidays. If you have a very limited amount of time to spend with friends and family that you haven’t seen for months or years, I would say maximizing that time is more important. Still I do not believe they are necessarily mutually exclusive.
I will have to be a bit careful here, because I am naive to many life circumstances. For example; having children. Again, here I would say that a lack of understanding or imagination of the available options is often the issue. You don’t need child care to do some lunges and pushups.
Exercise does not have to be specific, cookie cutter, treadmill and dumbbell workouts or bootcamp classes at a gym far from your house. There are uncountable options for moving and exercising, that include all time domains, locations and equipment (or lack thereof).
To undercut this reason, we will create a 5 minute workout. This is an amount of spare time that everyone has essentially every day. Take that 5 minutes and do an AMRAP! This stands for As Many Reps As Possible. Pick a couple movements from the chart below, and do 1-3 minutes of each to get a variety of muscles working.
Example:
2 minutes alternating lunges
1 minute squats
2 minutes sit ups
Of course I understand that there will be times when there simply is not enough time or energy or emotional bandwidth to exercise and that is fine. That will not be every day, unless there is a very serious problem, in which case you will probably not be reading this.
Enjoyment
This might actually be the toughest one to deal with depending on the person. If you truly dislike physical activity, it will be a real uphill battle to stay healthy or lose weight. Maybe you haven’t found a modality you enjoy yet, or maybe you have joint pain that is making things very uncomfortable. In the latter case, book a free consultation with me to discuss treatment or coaching to fix the painful problem and eliminate that barrier.
https://rehab2rx.ca/appointment
I think the best option for making things more enjoyable is to get your friends and family involved. You love spending time with them, so they will likely improve your perceived enjoyment of most activities. Maybe don’t golf with your spouse though.
Another indirect way to deal with this problem is, as mentioned above, to increase the time efficiency of the exercise, so that you don’t have to do it for as long. It’s much easier to do something you dislike for 10 minutes than for an hour.
If you have not tried anything other than treadmill walking and machine weight lifting at a globo-gym, then I think there is a good chance you may yet find an exercise modality that you enjoy. Again, try anything that your friends or family are doing so that maybe you can go together.
Here are some options for class/group exercise, some of which will be available while travelling: CrossFit, F45, pilates, yoga, running/cycling clubs. As a quick aside, sports are more fun than exercise for many people, but I would say those should be in addition to an exercise program if possible to keep things consistent. This will also be important for preventing injuries during sport participation.
Equipment/access
This is another barrier that is probably less robust than it seems. Though I will admit, not having equipment will probably be the biggest issue for someone with specific needs/goals or someone very advanced in their fitness level.
If you are going away on vacation, a quick google search of the destination will reveal any gyms or fitness options nearby. If you have the time on your trip, and the cost is not prohibitive, doing a drop in at a foreign CrossFit gym can be a super fun activity.
Packing a pair of shoes that you can use for lifting and running is key here so you don’t run out of room in your suitcase. If you like running, search for the nearest highschool, university or even just a park where you can run some sprints to get a super efficient workout.
A little bit of planning can go a long way.
When everything shut down for COVID19 I had to flex my creativity muscles to come up with some new ways to train at home. I thought of some novel (to me at least) ways to work without equipment. I also thought of some different ways to use equipment to expand the available exercise options.
I have included a list of bodyweight exercises below, which require essentially nothing other than you. If you even just use stuff that you already have at home or at a hotel/rental, this list expands massively. You can use a backpack or suitcase for lifting/carrying variations. You can use a water bottle for shoulder or arm isolation exercises.
Pulling exercises to work the back muscles are undoubtedly the toughest thing to do without equipment. I realized that if you have a partner, you can do a couple classic rowing variations with your partner. Specifically - the bent over row and the inverted row. I have included links to videos of those below for reference along with a couple others. You could also do them with one arm at a time for a greater challenge.
Here is a list of exercises you can do with nothing other than your body (*some depend on location). Think of all the potential options if you even just used stuff you have at home for resistance - endless.
Mix and match the exercises depending on your goals. Do an AMRAP, or an EMOM (every minute on the minute) for maximum time-efficiency. Try to beat your rep count the next time you do it to give yourself a fun challenge.
I hope this has given you some new ideas that will help you avoid unwanted weight gain and loss of fitness that can come from extended periods away from your routine.
This article is not for everyone of course. Taking time off once in a while is not only fine but it can be a really good idea if you train super hard and compete often. So if you need the time, take it!
Happy holidays everyone!
Lat/Paddler Slides
Slider Hamstring Curls
Partner Inverted/Bent Over Rows
