From the Halloween candy, to the Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing, to the Christmas gingerbread and fruitcake, to the champagne on New Year’s Eve, and all of the parties and pumpkin pies in between, now more than ever, we must arm ourselves for battle against this cold-weather-holiday-season onslaught of guerilla tactic assaults aimed at tearing down our best efforts toward clean eating and gym going.
Don’t allow yourself to “just maintain” during the winter months. The idea of being in a “maintenance” stage of training breeds in the mind a feeling of complacency. And complacency is especially dangerous in the cold weather. "Maintenance" will inevitably lead to backsliding. Before you know it, that scale will start creeping up and by the time spring rolls around, getting back on track for the bikini season will be far more difficult than it needs to be.
So instead of just maintaining this winter, improve! No matter what level of fitness you have achieved, there is ALWAYS room for improvement. I suggest setting new goals for yourself during the winter months. These should be qualitative or performance related goals rather than quantitative goals. This could be anything from improving your personal best on how many push-ups you can do in one minute, finally training your lats for that wide-grip pull up, or improving your speed on that 3-mile run. Signing up for a turkey trot is a great way to stay on track as the holiday season reaches its high-point of activity. An added bonus to the turkey trot is that you will usually be helping a good cause, and it is easy to get friends, family and co-workers involved along with you. This gives you the opportunity to infect others with the bug to stay fit and healthy, rather than letting them detract you from staying fit and healthy.
Such performance related goals will help keep you excited about hitting the gym. And as your performance improves, inevitably, so too will your physique. Finally, this year, you won’t have to worry about fitting into that little black dress for New Year’s Eve…maybe you will even have to buy one in a smaller size!
I am challenging all of you who are reading this post, before next Saturday (Halloween), to choose a new performance related goal that you will work toward throughout this holiday season. Send me your goals by commenting back to this post, and that way we can all support each other in our effort to eat clean and hit the gym over the next ten weeks. Personally, I have recently taken up hot-yoga, and will be working on increasing my endurance levels to be able to handle the 75 minute hot-yoga class. Hot yoga, by the way, is a great thing to look forward to as the weather grows increasingly frigid! What are your goals? I can't wait to hear about them!
*Holiday nutrition tip for the week* A tablespoon or two of canned pumpkin makes a great addition to your morning oatmeal. With a little cinnamon and Splenda or brown sugar, you've got a perfect defense against all those tempting pumpkin pastries at the coffee shop! This tip comes from my good friend and client Ellen...thanks Ellen! What a great idea!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
since i've been running 3 miles in 30 minutes, i would like to set a two-part running goal, to be achieved by New Year's. run for 40 minutes total AND run 3 miles in 25 minutes. endurance and speed improved. YES! i think i'll start with plan a and move up to plan b.
ReplyDeleteI think those are excellent goals. And totally manageable. Utilize interval training to improve both speed and endurance. Sprint for one minute, jog for 3-5 minutes. (or whatever intervals feel good to you.) Because running for longer time periods can be as much a mental challenge as a physical challenge, running intervals can break up the monotony and therby help you go for a longer period of time without fatiguing either mentally or physically. At the same time, you will be training your muscles to move more quickly! yay for double bonuses!!
ReplyDelete