Do Not To Wait Until The New Year To Start Your Quest For The Body You Want To Be Wearing
I love Christmas time, being with my family by the fire, playing games with my brother and sister, catching up with friends and generally just relaxing.
So don’t get me wrong here, I love Christmas time…..BUT I think for some it becomes a month of bombardment for their body and there is no real start or end.
Staff parties seem to start earlier and go on later than ever into January, one of the reasons why many people get side tracked in the new year and another reason the whole new year new you thing is bad news!
In years gone by, I am sure that it was meant to be a 1 or 2 day celebration.
Thomas Tusser in the 16th Century said,
“AT CHRISTMAS PLAY AND MAKE GOOD CHEER. FOR CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR”.
Personally I like the fact it goes on a bit longer but for some it becomes a stress to far with excessive consumption of toxins, lack of movement and their lifestyles go into disarray.
Some research has shown that on average we will consume 6000 calories on Christmas day. Now I know that I don’t usually do calorie counting as it means very little when the quality isn’t there, but when a busy man needs roughly 3500, you can see how things start to escalate. The British Diabetic Association found that people put on around half a stone over Christmas.
If you think that cutting out fat over Christmas will help you are probably going to be disappointed. Eating some good fats, from chestnut’s, walnuts, almonds will help to keep you fuller, meaning that when you go to friends houses, you are less likely to want to binge on canapés which are laden with trans fats (bad) and other MSG’s (equally bad). Skipping meals in an effort to reduce calorie intake will more than likely lead to similar binging, so just eat a little food before heading out .
Get a bit of physical activity and if possible some exercise in over the Christmas period.
1. Offer to take the dogs out
2. Get the logs and coal in
3. Take “little Johnny” out on his new bike
4. Go sledging and don’t just watch!
If possible try training for 20-30 mins in the morning before anyone else even gets out of bed. This might not be possible on Christmas day if your children were anything like me on Christmas day.
Here is a little sample session you could do to tide you over if you haven’t got a programme to follow.
You will love this one! Only 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the evening, but your metabolism will be on fire after these two.
Here is the video link for this workout available on my website at http://www.blastfatloss.com.
http://www.youtube.com/user/cgistudios#p/u/4/S49tctLzDE4
The workout is also detailed below, so watch the movie for the techniques, read the session, and then get prepared for some serious fat burning!
SESSION: CARDIO 1 WORKOUT
EXERCISE: OPTION 1 / OPTION 2/ OPTION 3
RUNNERS: 10 ALTERNATING (ALT) /20 ALT/ 30 ALT
SIDE SHUFFLES: 10 PER SIDE/20 /30
PUNCHES : 20 ALT/40/60
STEPPING: 10/20/30 PER SIDE
Structure
Complete all our exercises. Then rest for 20s and repeat for up to 10 minutes. In this session.
Start the days exceptionally well. I will be eating a really well balanced breakfasts that will include some berries, some oats, some eggs, cinnamon and lots of water. If you want you could start with some green veggies and some salmon with scrambled egg.
Over the Christmas period please make sure you take the opportunity to sleep. In my previous articles you will have seen how important sleep is to health and this is particularly important when there is so much going on. Not only at Christmas, but particularly at this time. Not only will you feel much better you will probably be far more fun to be around.
So there you have it in summary:
Don’t skip meals or try to avoid fat completely, there are good fats.
Start the days exceptionally well.
Get some short bursts of exercise in before everyone gets up.
Be as physically active as you can over the festive period.
Take the opportunity to Sleep.
I hope you enjoyed this short but really useful little article on how to make sure you are in better shape than most going into 2013.
Matt
