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Staying Fit and Working Out During the Holidays -- Motivational Tips
Rate it! Votes (1) | Comments (0) By Joni Hyde Posted August 6th, 2007	Fitness For Dummies

With lots of temptations around and less time to exercise, it's no wonder that the average woman gains 6 to 10 pounds during the holiday season. Avoid the holiday fat traps and hold on to your fitness by following these simple tips.

Be Flexible
Schedules will be getting busier and will offer you more diversity with extra chores such as holiday cooking, shopping, entertaining and visiting friends or family. Make the commitment to not totally abandon your workout no matter what the holidays bring. Abandon the mindset that exercise can wait till January 1st.

Take care of yourself and maintain your regular workouts
You will feel better and have more energy. Even if you have to cut your workouts back to just a half an hour, your will be far better of than if you did no exercise at all.

Save Up For The Splurge
Many ladies believe that by skipping meals during the day that they have actually made extra room and can go ahead and really splurge at the party. By arriving at the party famished, chances are good that you'll go overboard on high calorie goodies. Also, you will wreak havoc on your well trained metabolism if you go hungry during the day. You ask what's the solution? Lighten up your caloric intake during the day by about 500 calories, but don't skip any meals. Eat only half of what you normally would at each meal.

Watch Out For The Drinks
Remember, drinks are not calorie free. A glass of wine or beer is at least 100 calories. A glass of spiked eggnog is about 300 calories. To make matters more complicated, alcohol actually stimulates your appetite. Yikes! If you choose to drink alcohol try alternating spiked drinks with nonalcoholic ones or even better a glass of water.

Don't Set Yourself Up For Failure
The Holiday Season is a great time of year to focus on maintaining your current weight. While it's definitely possible to lose weight during the holidays, for most women it's not a reality. If you are planning on avoiding all temptations through the holiday season, you may be setting yourself up for failure. Sometimes this mindset will backfire on you, resulting in going hog wild on holiday treats if you feel you've failed by giving in. Allow yourself to enjoy festive foods during special holiday events, but keep your celebrating confined to the events only. Don't make the mistake of turning holiday splurging into a several week long event.

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