Holiday Survival Guide

5 proven ways to stick to your plan during the busy party season.

Holiday preparations, family visits, and epic meals… end-of-the-year festivities can make it feel impossible to avoid skipping workouts, gaining weight, and landing on January 1st with a momentous hangover.

Life can be calm and collected. Or it can be frenetic and crazy. The holidays, of course, offer a healthy dose of the latter. Today, I get to share this “Holiday Survival Guide” with you.

Holiday Survival Tool #1

Eat slowly and to “satisfied” instead of “stuffed”

The most effective (and sanity-preserving) tool for holiday eating may also be the simplest one: Eat slowly. (And stop at “satisfied”, instead of “stuffed”). This strategy helps you avoid overeating for two main reasons:

  • Physiological
    It takes 15-20 min for your digestive system to let your brain know that you’re satisfied. Slowing down a meal allows that to happen before you overeat.
  • Psychological
    When you slow down, “sense into”, and savor your food, you feel content with much less. This means you’ll eat less but enjoy what you’ve eaten more.

Indeed, when eating slowly (and stopping at “satisfied” instead of “stuffed”) you can try all the delicious foods on Grandma’s buffet without guilt or needing to “work it off later”.

Holiday Survival Tool #2

Stay in shape when you’re busy

It’s one of the most common patterns with folks who want to get (and/or stay) fit will exercise diligently for months, only to get derailed by the holidays and “fall off the wagon” for the entire year.

That’s why its important to come up with a simple home workout, which you can do no matter where the holidays take you. 10 to 15 min with body weight exercises or bands / free weights will keep you in routine. It takes only a few minutes a day, it requires minimal or no equipment, focuses on compound exercise (big muscles, big movements) which makes it very effective when you want a good movement session but have limited time.

Holiday Survival Tool #3

Eating well on the go.

The end of the year has most people bouncing from supermarket to mall to party to recital — not to mention the planes, trains, and automobiles routine if you’re traveling. When you’re on the go, it can feel like navigating a nutritional minefield: Hunger signals overpowering, junk food everywhere, little time to sit down and eat your veggies. Challenging, of course, but not impossible. With some meal prep ahead of time and some smart strategies, you can eat well on the go no matter where life takes you.

You see, letting yourself get too hungry is one of the best ways to end up over-drinking and overeating. And during the holidays, you don’t always have the time to prep a nice, balanced plate of protein, veggies, fruit, and healthy fats.

Holiday Survival Tool #4

The best calorie control guide

Want to get through the holidays without losing strength? Without gaining extra weight and body fat? That’s all possible. Sure, it’ll feel difficult with all that calorie-dense food in front of you. But your health can survive another year of Mom’s mostly-butter mashed potatoes and Aunt Marie’s pumpkin bourbon cheesecake if you just eat slowly and pay attention to portions.

No, no… not calorie counting. That’s often annoying, impractical, and inaccurate, especially during holiday dinners. So try our “hand measure” system instead. All you need is the ability to count to two. And your own hand. Here how it works:

  • Your palm determines your protein portions.
  • Your fist determines your veggie portions.
  • Your cupped hand determines your carb portions.
  • Your thumb determines your fat portions.
  • serving recommendation:
  • Protein: two palm-sized portions with each meal, and for women recommended one palm-sized portion with each meal.
  • Veggies: two fist-sized portions of vegetables with each meal, for women we recommended one fist-sized portion of vegetables with each meal.
  • Carbohydrates: two cupped-hand sized portions of carbohydrates with most meals, for women we recommend one cupped-hand sized portion of carbohydrates with most meals.
  • Fats: two thumb-sized portions of fats with most meals, for women we recommend one thumb-sized portion of fats with most meals.
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    4 Comments:
    July 31, 2020

    number 1 totally makes sense for me. honesty i think iv been eating my meals too quickly which leads me to over eat :good:

    Carey Drier
    October 25, 2020

    Bahaha ! Size of my fist is changes as i get fatter :wacko: I need some pt sessions Andrew

    January 1, 2021

    My brother sugɡested I miɡht like this bloɡ.
    He used to be entirely right. This post actually made my day.
    You cann’t beⅼievе ѕimply how ѕo mᥙcһ time I had spent for
    this infо! Tһank ʏou!

    January 10, 2021

    Could have used this info a few weeks ago; lol

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