#44: Staying on Track During the Holidays: Tips for avoiding holiday weight gain & losing progress with your weight training
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Welcome to 40 Plus Fitness for Women. I'm Lynn, your host, and today I'm going to share with you some of my thoughts about how maybe to get through this holiday season where fitness and eating may pose some challenges for you. And today I see that this is like really a relevant topic because yesterday here where I am, we had the opening of Christmas and today it's snowing quite a bit.
In fact, once I get, I have three podcasts that I'm recording today. And once I get These done, I'm excited to go outside with the dog and walk in the snow. So, but it got me thinking about, wow, my calendar is really filling up with Christmas events. I have, um, a formal event. I have work event. I have Christmas concerts and things with friends and, and in general.[00:01:00]
Somehow, it seems like in November already, every week, I'm eating out at least once a week, if not twice a week. And that not only poses challenges for me, staying within my Calorie, you know, range, but also making enough time for my fitness goals because two days out of the week that you're, doing fun things means two days less time to do your fitness things.
Not that fitness isn't fun. I didn't say that. I love my fitness things, but anyway, yeah, so I guess the first thing that I would think in this topic area is that, you know, the holiday season is short, but the same way that if you were in a calorie deficit for four weeks, you would be able to see like significant results.
If you [00:02:00] spend four or six weeks. overeating constantly, then you're going to notice it in your body as well. So while I am not an advocate of like, Nope, I'm not gonna eat any fun, you know, holiday food, because I love holiday food. I mean, we have a lot of salmon, which is healthy, but high fat compared to eating low fat chicken and low fat beef all the time and all these things.
So I have actually come up with some strategies that have helped, to keep the eating from going like. Out of control. And so I want to share those and then I'll share the fitness stuff. So first of all, I still believe in eating regularly scheduled meals. So I do the five times a day meals, breakfast, , lunch, snack, protein shake and dinner.
And I will continue to do [00:03:00] that. , because I know that if I, for example, skip all my meals until dinner and then think, okay, I'm just going to do all my calories at dinner, I'm going to be so hungry going into dinner that first of all, it'll ruin my day and my energy levels will be down. I'll probably move less, you know, in other words, burn less calories, all those things during the day, but also I'm likely to.
Even more overeat at that dinner. So at least having something over the course of the day. And if I think about like, well, for me, it'll be Christmas. Eve and Christmas day and then boxing day where there are the big sit down dinners. I know in the States there's also Thanksgiving day. So it's actually, if you think about it, it's like four days, right?
That that you have like these larger, larger amounts of food, but once you are. You know, in that meal where you're sitting down, well, if we talk about [00:04:00] Thanksgiving, for example, I would choose the proteins. I mean, Thanksgiving's great because you've got turkey and that's fairly low fat protein source versus I'm thinking about salmon as being like the heavy one at Christmas or ham.
So you've got the turkey, you choose your protein source first, and then add the other things that you want to eat. Now, if you're going there and you're starving, you're probably going to really heap stuff onto your plate. So that's one reason why maybe don't go in there starving. And always keep in mind that you can go back for seconds if you need to.
It feels bad, you know, if you pile stuff on your plate and then you leave it and you know, the host. Sees all this waste that you've got to throw away. But one practice that I've started even just in my general like if I go out to eat or I have a [00:05:00] salad And a restaurant or whatever.
I always start by eating the protein and the things that I like. Now, this has been a radical change from before where I would kind of eat the things I don't like so much. And I'd save my favorite stuff for last. And of course, if you think about it, that leads to probably overeating, right? Cause you've already gotten pretty full from the stuff that you don't like so much.
And then. You kind of force yourself or you it's not even forced because it's the stuff that you find delicious But you eat that stuff even though you actually wouldn't need any more food. You're already satiated So I've just started by like hey, I'll eat the stuff I like best So in a salad probably well whatever the protein source is of course that goes in first and then if there are some vegetables that I really enjoy and and fruit and whatever.
I'll eat those first. And then when I start to feel full, I'm like, [00:06:00] Oh, do I really feel like eating these cucumbers that I don't like so much anyway, or, or whatever it might be that I don't like so much anyway. And I leave it, you know, you are actually. Allowed to leave food. Okay. Maybe not so nice in company, but it's not like you're really going to help any starving people in other countries by eating that food and overeating yourself.
Right. And then there are those tricks that. You've probably heard about everywhere, which is, you know, eating slowly. I actually, it was wonderful. I went out on a few dates with a gentleman who actually eats even more slowly than I do. And I'm usually the last one at the table. And it was great because. It was like, between every mouthful, I would put down my fork, we would have a little bit of conversation, then I would have another mouthful, have [00:07:00] a conversation, and You know, that allows your stomach and brain to communicate that, Hey, this is getting full down here.
You don't need to eat anymore. And as a result, I actually felt much more satiated with those meals. Maybe it wasn't so much that I felt more satiated, but that I noticed that I walked away from those meals and these were in restaurants, but those meals not feeling stuffed, right? Because I stopped before, you know, before I got.
Myself stuffed. So putting the fork down between bites and also being conscious of the fact that you're eating, not eating in front of the TV. That's always the worst. And I know I am so bad about that. I love to sit in front of the TV and like munch on something. And it is really one of the worst habits ever.
And nowadays I've shifted so that, okay, if I eat in front of the TV, it's going to be [00:08:00] carrot sticks because they're. Yeah, they're nice and crunchy and then the other thing that is a big one actually, and this applies through your whole year, not just in the holiday season is the role of alcohol.
And I say, this is a person who has not given up alcohol. I enjoy having a few drinks with friends. I love my GTs in particular. That is my favorite drink right now. But the thing is that alcohol has a lot of calories. And no nutritional value.
And often when you drink, you actually eat a little bit more. I mean, I noticed that on the evenings that I've been out with my friends, I come home at whatever time I come home. And then I think, Oh, I'm going to eat something to kind of soak up this liquor so that I feel good in the morning or whatever.
Or it decreases your [00:09:00] inhibitions about having some potato chips or nuts or whatever, you know, so yeah, it's kind of a double whammy. Alcohol is a lot of calories and then you start consuming more calories. And then the third way that it's really bad, well, not only the third way, but one major other way that it is bad is that it affects your quality of sleep.
And as I've talked about on the podcast before, when you've had poor quality sleep, what ends up happening is that your hunger and satiety hormones, i. e. the ones that signal to you that, Hey, I'm hungry or Hey, I've had enough. They go out of whack. So their signaling is off. You think you need food when you actually don't.
You don't realize you're full when you actually are. So alcohol is a challenging substance to work with because [00:10:00] in many ways, at least those three, it is really encouraging kind of. More calorie consumption okay. So those are kind of my thoughts on the eating piece.
I mean, my, my own personal philosophy is, you know, the, the holidays only come around once a year. They just happen to have a whole bunch of them at the end of the year. And of course. You know, you want to enjoy those foods. I don't think there are any foods that are off the list. I am certainly going to have desserts, uh, and all the things, but I hope, and I will endeavor not to go like 3000 calories over my daily allotment, right?
Of what I normally am, or else I'm just going to be prepared to put on an extra couple pounds. And by the way, if you're weighing yourself the day after a meal, keep in [00:11:00] mind that if you've eaten, first of all, eat more than what you normally eat, or even for example, more carbohydrates than you normally eat, then you are probably going to weigh more merely because carbs cause you to retain a little bit more water.
And plus, if you've eaten more like. You know, that food weighed something. And if you haven't had a chance to poop it out, it is weighing you down. So the scale is probably going to tell you a worse story than what the reality is at that point in time. Okay. So that. was my thoughts on food.
And now if we turn to the fitness part of it, because this gets challenging as you know, you get busier around the holidays and you have all kinds of things to do. Work is busier. Oh my God. A lot of times it's like they want you to just do everything that you haven't done all year, right? Or you have to wrap things up for the year plus plan next year and, [00:12:00] and all the things school has.
I mean, I have three children and I remember there'd be like, if they're in three different schools, it's like three different Christmas things. And then the parents Christmas things and, and team Christmas things and whatever. It was insane anyway. So it may mean that you have less time for your fitness.
So in weight training, if you have to take a week off because you're traveling somewhere and there is no weight room there, or even two weeks off, like, come on, let's be realistic. Yeah. This is not going to sink your fitness journey, right? Just the same way as two weeks of going to the gym is not all of a sudden going to make you super duper fit.
Two weeks of missing it is not going to kill your gains either. Yes. It's going to be hard to go back after two weeks. Maybe you need a little bit more motivation to go back and you're probably going to be a little [00:13:00] bit sore. But it is definitely doable. And please don't beat yourself up and think, Oh, I failed.
And now I just, I'm going to quit and wait until the next thing. No, just, just get back in there. And if you do have time to train, even if you can't go all the times that you normally go, then go. you know, once a week, or twice a week, do something.
So with muscles, even giving it much less stimulus, I think the study is say about one ninth. Of the normal stimulus that you give them is enough to maintain them. Now, I wouldn't do one ninth for weeks and months on end and expect, you know, in perimenopause and menopause to maintain your muscles, but it just goes to show that if like one week, two weeks you do significantly less, if you do something, it's going to help to [00:14:00] maintain what you've achieved so far.
Even if you can't do anything else, keeping your movement up is a great way to be using calories during this holiday season. So go for that walk after a meal, help clean up the kitchen, pace back and forth while you're watching the football game or whatever it is that you like to do. You know, just move
and also take advantage of this wonderful time though. There's a lot of stress associated with the holidays. You can try to find little pockets where you can be more mindful, for example, decorating the Christmas tree, you could think of it as, Oh my God, I have this chore.
I got to get the Christmas tree decorated and now I'm going to do this. But a while back, this became the thing that my daughter and I did together. Cause my sons, [00:15:00] they just weren't interested. And then I got sick of forcing them to come decorate the tree. So nowadays. Well, I get the tree out, my daughter and I, and we put on some Christmas music and we have a little bit of Christmas drink, which is this kind of red berry juice that's heated.
It's quite nice, not alcoholic, just heated juice. And we decorate the tree together and it's wonderful mother daughter time and we're both there, there's no TV. It's just a little bit of Christmas music and enjoying that. You can also catch up on your sleep. Hopefully you have a little time off from work.
So sleep in, don't feel like you just need to do, do, do, do, because sleep is really important and catching up on it. Oh, that is real luxury. Do little things that you like, so if it snows like it did here [00:16:00] today and you enjoy shoveling the front walk, you know, go and enjoy shoveling the front walk or take a walk in the snow or do something that you enjoyed.
Walk in the malls, go to the sales, anything that is moving and you're doing something that you enjoy. Yes. So those are my thoughts on it. So I'm not like into super strict, Hey, holidays, Oh my God, I got a panic or, Oh my God, I got to fit everything in. I try to be merciful and I really suggest that you are merciful with yourself.
It is a stressful time of year. And if you're in perimenopause menopause, you may feel stressed out in general. And so don't expect yourself to be able to do everything, just like it was normal life. Plus adding on all the Christmas and holiday stuff. [00:17:00] Anyhow, I hope this was helpful.
And if you have any tips about how you make, your fitness and your diet goals and everything work at Christmas, I would love to hear them so that I can pass them along to others. And uh, yeah, happy holidays and I will talk to you next week. Happy training.