The holidays are a wonderful, joyful time of year; but let’s face it, our health and fitness tend to take a back seat during this season. Between work, friends, and family gatherings, there’s no escaping the vast array of indulgent temptations. And naturally, with our eating routine off track, our workout routine is sure to follow.

Look, the holidays are meant for a little indulgence and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. However, it’s still important to maintain your health and wellness. If staying fit through the holidays is one of your goals, you’re in the right spot.

You can totally enjoy the delicious and cozy holiday season while sticking to your fitness goals. Here, we’ll share ways to stay healthy and fit for the holidays.

Find the Motivation to Stay In Shape

Staying fit throughout the holidays requires a little extra oomph to make it happen. To learn how to balance your fitness goals and all of the holiday temptations, you’re going to want to find your motivation.

Here are some tips and tricks you can use to boost up your motivation to keep consistent throughout this season:

• Look back at your progress. One of the best ways to get motivated for more results is to look at the results you have achieved this far. Didn’t it feel great to work hard to reach those milestones? Think of all the effort you put in. Are a few short-lived indulgences worth taking a vacation from your fitness goals?
• Find your purpose. What drives many to strive toward something is a sense of purpose - an overarching goal that gives meaning to your life and that all subsequent goals fall into. In moments when our motivation is tested, we have to remind ourselves of this sense of purpose and why we are doing what we are doing. Find the reason why your health and wellness is so important that you need to nurture it, even during the harder times.
• Set post-holidays goals. Another reason many people may stray during the holidays is not having any clear-cut, immediate goals to work on during the holidays. This is usually the time between goals. A great way to stay on track is to sign up for a post-holiday fitness challenge like a boxing match or marathon early in the year. Or, you can even sign up for one of the many social media fitness challenges to keep yourself accountable with a community. When you know you have something to look forward to at the end of the festivities, it will make you think twice about giving up your training.

Preparing Your Fitness Regimen for the Holidays

The holidays are a busy time of year, so it’s OK if your normal training routine takes a back seat for now. Whether your traveling to see family or hosting guests at your house, your fitness regimen may need a little tweaking to accommodate your holiday lifestyle.

Not to fret! All you need is to do a little planning in advance. A lot of planning goes into a holiday, and fitness should factor into these plans. Once you know exactly what your options are, it becomes easier to plan a workout strategy accordingly and stay fit for the holidays.

Let’s take a look at some workout options you can choose from.

Join a Fitness Center

Whether your traveling or staying local, joining a motivating atmosphere may be just what you need to stay on track. If traveling, look for a hotel that either contains a fitness studio or has a nearby fitness center that offers temporary guest memberships.

If you’re not traveling, now may be a great time to join a local fitness studio, or make use of an existing membership. The holidays are very busy, and even without traveling your time may be caught up in hosting guests. That’s why at Gloveworx we offer Lightning Sessions to help you get in a powerful workout in a quick 30 minutes. Taking that short break from your hosting duties is a great way to maintain your health and wellness (and possibly some sanity!) during this busy time of year.

Outdoor Alternatives

Don’t let the holiday chill prevent you from an outdoor workout. Dress for the weather and look for great walking or running trails. You can also search for nearby parks and do a parkour-style workout.

Another idea is to partake in seasonal outdoor activities like ice skating, skiing, snowboarding, or even sledding (pulling your sled up that big hill is no joke!). Depending on where you live and what kind of outdoor activities are offered throughout the winter, you can take advantage of fun local activities, all the while getting your exercise in. Who says staying fit isn’t fun?

At-Home Spaces

Perhaps you are staying with relatives and either don’t have access to or don’t want to attend a fitness center. Don’t worry, we’ve got a solution for that too. It’s called an at-home workout!

Pop in your headphones and use the space you have available to you. Resistance bands are highly portable and great for strength training at home. Bodyweight exercises are also perfect and completely free for at-home exercise. You can use your body weight for strength training and interval training to help get your heart rate up and burn off more calories in a shorter period of time. Squats, lunges, push-ups, and jumping jacks are great bodyweight exercises.

You can still get in a great workout while traveling, even if there’s no equipment, so #noexcuses.

Plan Ahead With Your Diet

Making good food choices is one of the hardest challenges during the holiday season. Between the chocolatey treats and hearty comfort food, it’s difficult to stay on track with healthy eating. It’s also harder to access healthy food if your traveling to see family.

As with your fitness regime, you can do a bit of pre-holiday food planning to put yourself in a position to make healthy choices (with a little bit of balance, of course) during this season.

• Local Restaurants - If you’re traveling and plan to be eating out a lot, do your research ahead of time. Hop onto Google and check out some menus. Jot down those restaurants that offer healthy options and stick to those.
• Create Healthy Holiday Meals - There’s no written rule that says holiday food can’t be healthy. With enough creativity, or simply by following a recipe, you can turn your holiday faves into guilt-free, delicious meals. But shhh, your family will never have to know.
• Portion Control - Of course, you can still enjoy a few holiday treats. However, if you want to stick to your fitness goals you’ll have to be smart about it. Practice being OK with small indulgences. Allow yourself one small treat per day or per meal. We all have to make tough choices - in life and in fitness!

Incorporate Fitness into the Holiday Activities

There are a whole lot of ways to stay fit during the holidays. One of the best ways to stay fit is to simply incorporate exercise into holiday events. Plan outings with the family that requires physical activity, whether that be going ice skating or keeping it indoors and go bowling or indoor roller skating

What about all of those errands? The holidays require a lot of shopping for gifts, groceries, and other items. Strap on some comfortable sneakers and use it as a time to walk through the mall, or park your car far away from the entrance to stores to get in those extra steps. Oh, and don’t discount the chores. A lot of spring cleaning and decorating goes into preparing for holiday parties and guests. That’s still a good form of movement that can help towards your fitness goals.

Prepare for the Holidays with Gloveworx

We say it all the time here at Gloveworx, we train for life and balance is everything. We want you to enjoy your much-deserved holidays so that you can come back to formal training fresh and ready in the New Year. But, don't wait until after the holidays to start. Try a Lightning Session or a 30-minute one-on-one to keep your body and mind fit and energized through this beautiful time of year.