How To Stay On Track Throughout The Holidays

“Good morning, everybody! Thank you for tuning in to today’s Q and A, and today’s Q and A, I’m going to go over how you can stay on track throughout the holiday season without gaining a bunch of weight and still being able to enjoy your family favorite foods. 

Before we get into that though, I do have a huge, huge, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to so many of you that have been giving me support, asking me questions, showing me love. I really appreciate that. So you know who you are. Thank you to all of you. For all those questions I mean keep coming, I do have to apologize. It’s been about two weeks since I’ve gotten to the Q and A videos, The team and I were out of the office and then we’ve been working on very diligently and hard on special programs for clients in gym at EarthFIT here in South Carolina, and then across the country, the clients we coach remotely to bring them value, make sure they’re staying on track throughout the holidays as well. So if you have any questions, please make sure you’re dropping them in the comments below you’re messaging me on Facebook or shoot me an email. I’ll either answer them directly to you right then and there, or I’ll make a video if it’s more popular topic like today’s topic.

So today’s topic usually gets presented to me in a variety of ways, but more or less it’s along the lines of, “Hey Sam, between December and February, I gained about 30 pounds. How can I not do that? But also I want to be able to enjoy the holiday season. I want to be able to have some of those nice sweet treats on my favorite holidays and enjoy, actually enjoy the time that I have with my family. How can I do all of that? Is it even possible?” So I’m going to give you a few simple steps on what to do so you can have both those things. You have that health and wellness as you’d like and deserve, and you can have those treats that you like.

So step number (1), We have to build momentum rolling into the holidays. What I mean by momentum is, I mean our health and fitness momentum. We want to be in some of the best shape that we can be. Now, some of you may be thinking I haven’t done anything. Um, Thanksgiving just happened since then, I’ve been sitting on the couch. I’m just going to wait till New Years’ do not do that. Okay? A lot of people will do that and that’s where they access body fat goes on. If you can actually get up, start moving, even if you’re just starting your start from square one, you worked out in 20 years. If you start getting that momentum rolling for a couple of weeks, going into the holidays, that is going to mitigate a lot of the fat gain that you have throughout the holidays. And it’s going to keep you a little bit more focused throughout the holidays, which in turn will again, mitigate all the fattening that you have throughout the holidays and some of the damage that you’ve done through that. So step number one, Prepare yourself physically. So get up, start drinking more water, walking. If you’re not sure if you are starting from step one, you have no idea what to do. You can reach out to me and we can help you out. Or if you need to plan, we can help you out there. Okay… on how to get through those specifically with your fitness. 

Step number (2), Know that there’s going to be stress, okay. There should be a lot of stress. And what stress will do to people is causing them to act, overeat. So going into the holidays, where there is going to be lots of stress, let’s focus on doing activities that de-stress us, that are healthy for us. So for some people that may be reading, it could be going fishing, things like that. We also want to make sure we’re focusing on our sleep during this time, because we don’t want that tip to compound and make us more stressed out, right? Because there’s gonna be things, family situations, loss of loved ones, things are gonna come up around the holidays that you know, really can bother us and can stress us out. Prepare for that, know that it’s coming and plan accordingly. Okay. If you prepare a little bit, you’re going to be a lot less stressed. So step number one was to prepare your body physically. Step number two is you need to kind of prepare our mind as well for the stress that’s coming.

Step number (3), When the holidays actually approached that big day comes, how should you eat? What should you do? Just follow this simple framework. Okay? Eat your protein sources. So your meats, things like that in the morning with your fats, lower fat though, you don’t want to overdo it still in the morning and at lunch. And then in the evening after dinner, that’s when you can break out the sweets. So that’s when you break up the pies, things like that. A lot of times you’ll have this false belief that if they eat higher sugar foods or higher carbohydrate foods in the morning that they’re going to get up and they’re going to run around, they’re going to burn it off all day. That’s not what happens. We all have that Uncle that eats a pie for lunch and then passes out on the couch, right? That’s more or less what happens when people eat a lot of sugar. And then also what it does is it spikes their hunger. So they’re eating more throughout the day. So the best strategy I can give you on those days as big holiday days that you know you’re new through your family, save the carbohydrates for the evening. And then the next day they’re right back on through whatever nutrition plan you’re on and just keep hammering it out there. So just to kind of recap… and a bonus I almost forgot, hydrate, hydrate that day more than anything. So drink training, drink at least a gallon of water if you’re a male, three quarters of a gallon, three quarters of a gallon of water if you’re a female, okay, you can drink more than that. Females, you could drink a gallon isn’t going to hurt you… You can get by on half it’s not gonna hurt you on those holiday days. If you do that, you will eat less, you will feel better physically as well. 

So to recap, go into the holidays with the momentum. You’re just starting out. Start today. Don’t wait until after the new year’s okay. Start right now. Step number two, prepare yourself mentally for the stress that’s coming. Okay. Start enjoying those activities that you find relaxing. We want to keep those up going into the holidays because there’s going to be stress. There is for the majority of Americans right around the holiday. So you de-stress yourself. Step number three, make sure when the holiday approaches, that big day approaches, we’re saving the sweet treats for the evening. Okay. We’re cutting out the carbohydrates throughout the day. You want to save them for after dinner or with dinner later in the evening. Okay. And then make sure you’re hydrated. You’re properly hydrated. If you follow those steps, you will stay on track. I promise you. You’re not going to gain 30 pounds when you simply follow those steps. So let’s get that momentum rolling. Let’s start today. Everybody, stay strong. If there’s any way I can help you, please reach out.”