By Coach Julie

At this time of year, we get the opportunity to visit and relax with friends and family that we may not get to see very often throughout the year. I want to encourage you to take full advantage, have fun, and enjoy this priceless time you get to spend with your loved ones.

This is also a time where we have many opportunities to eat delicious treats, have large family meals and consume some holiday beverages! We want you to enjoy the holidays and we have a few ideas on how to get the most out of it without sacrificing too much of the progress you have made throughout the year.

Here are some of our recommendations on how to thrive over the holidays!

Sleep in

If you have time off over the holidays use this time to get some much needed Zzz’s – sleep helps your body recover and will allow you to bring your best, most rested self to all your functions.

Plan physical activities

Go for a hike, plan a trip to the mountains to go skiing, snowboarding or snowshoeing! Make an effort to make it to the gym. If you normally train 5 days per week maybe do 2-3 instead of doing zero. If you already have a habit of physical training, work at maintaining your training schedule even if instead of going the gym you go for a hike with family and friends and/or go for a walk after a big meal.

Eat your veggies

If you’re going to visit friends/ family for meals offer to bring a veggie platter or salad to add some green to the mix. If you’re hosting make sure to have 1 or 2 healthy veggie options on the table or mixed in with the Christmas cookies.

Eat slowly and abstain from seconds

Try not to treat your meals like a pie eating contest! Place your fork down between bites, chew your food, have a sip of your drink between bites. The body has a thing called the satiety mechanism (it’s the thing that takes about 20 minutes to let your brain know that your stomach is full) If we speed eat we can easily over consume which will leave some of us laying on the couch loosening our belt going into an insulin coma. See if you can be the last person in the group to finish your plate – make a game of it. Often if you eat slowly you will become full well before you finish your plate. Eating slowly will also keep you from feeling the need to have seconds and then you can save some room for dessert.

Drink Responsibly

Go ahead and have a glass of wine or some rum and eggnog or some Baileys in your coffee on Christmas morning! This time of year we can easily lose control so if you have a hard time staying in control with Alcohol it might be a good idea to come up with a plan or strategy to have fun but also keep from over consuming. One trick I like is to drink 2-3x as much water as you do alcohol. So if you have one Glass of wine, you don’t have another until you’ve had two glasses of water. Another trick is to not start drinking early. Wait until supper (after a large meal) or until later in the evening so that you don’t have 10 hours of drinking but maybe 1 or 2. If you know that you can’t control yourself maybe it would be best to abstain completely from alcohol. If you have friends and family that struggle with alcohol don’t pressure them to drink – allow everyone to make their own decision. Please don’t drink and drive and if you plan on partying bring an overnight kit with you and arrange with your host to have a bed/air mattress available or bring one with you.

No matter what strategy you use,  take care and enjoy the season,

From all of us at CF WOR we want you to wish you a Merry Christmas and happy holidays!