Mastering Your Holiday Fitness and Nutrition - Tip #1

How to stick to the plan during the crazy season.

End of the year celebrations, travel, visiting family and friends, awesome family meals...all of this can be stressful and make you feel like the hard work you put into your health and fitness the rest of the year will be sabotaged.

You'll think it's going to be impossible to maintain your workouts, impossible to avoid gaining weight, and end up going into the New Year guilting yourself into killing yourself in the gym three hours a day, eating kale chips, and drinking smoothies.

We all know how long that kind of "all or nothing" extremism lasts - maybe a couple weeks? A month?

That's why I wanted to put together this series of tips to help you make it through the end of the year craziness with your hard work, and hopefully, your sanity intact.

These are some of the same tips and strategies we use with Size Healthy Coaching clients to help them prioritize their health and fitness no matter what time of year, or what life puts in their way.

Our lives can be crazy at times.

It seems like no matter how much you plan, or mentally prepare yourself, the Holidays are one of those times.

Spending too much money on gifts...long trips to visit family...kids running around the house...dodging Legos in your bare feet...eating too much...not exercising enough.

After over 20 years and raising 2 kids, my wife and I have pretty much seen and done it all during the Holidays. I've been deployed during Christmas while I was in the military. Driving 15+ hours one way to see family. Heck, we even left the kids with close friends one year and we went to Las Vegas...and no, we don't even feel guilty about it :).

All of this craziness is fun, but also challenging to keep up with how we like to eat, and our exercise schedules.

But, over those years we have discovered things that work, and made us good at eating and training with our goals in mind - even during the holidays.

Of course our schedule and the types of food we eat are different during the holidays, but trust me, we are not eating kale chips, drinking smoothies, and spending 6 hours a day in the studio.

And we don't want you eating kale chips and drinking smoothies either (unless that's your thing). If you want to see how the Ramirez Family eats during the holidays check this out.

We've used these tips and strategies ourselves, and given them to our Size Healthy Coaching clients so that they can have fun while making the most out of their holidays AND their healthy and fitness journey. Now we want to give them to everyone.

Tip #1 - Eat S-L-O-W-L-Y and eat until you're satisfied, not stuffed

I have this as my #1 tip for a reason - it's the simplest, most effective strategy for avoiding holiday over-eating: Eat slowly, and eat until you are satisfied, not stuffed.

This strategy works in two ways:

Physiological -

It takes anywhere from 15-25 minutes for your digestive system to send signals to your brain telling you that you've had enough to eat. When you mindlessly fly through your meal you don't give your body signals enough time to catch up - resulting in still feeling hungry (getting a second plate full of food), when you've actually had enough to satisfy the physiological need to eat, resulting in - you guessed it - feeling stuffed.

Psychological -

When you eat slowly, you have time to actually savor and taste the food. You explore all the different flavors, the texture and the feeling it gives you. This allows you to enjoy the food even more, while eating less.

This strategy will allow you to eat a little of everything that Nana's house has to offer totally guilt-free!

Yes...even a little slice of sweet potato pie :)

Want help becoming the best version of you in 2018? To finally say goodbye to dieting forever?

We all know that getting exercise, eating sensibly, getting enough rest, and finding ways to manage stress are essential to feeling and looking your best, but we all need help at times when it comes to actually putting it all together in our busy lives.

That's why we work hard to help Size Healthy Coaching clients improve their health, get the body they want, and live their lives better than ever - no matter what's going on in their lives.