My favorite holiday meal is undoubtedly pumpkin pie. But I don’t discriminate against other holiday meals either! I love a juicy turkey or a rare ribeye and filling the rest of my plate with wonderful side dishes.
I enjoy these guilt-free because I know I’ll be back in the gym and I know I have tried-and-true habits to maintain the body composition I want. I believe that the fitness community is sometimes led to believe that we must feel guilty after eating this way, otherwise we won’t be able to stay healthy or have the body composition we are constantly working towards. At gym. Or an all or nothing type of mentality. It’s like we have to settle for being unhealthy during the holidays or we won’t be able to enjoy it.
Thanksgiving comes, we overeat, and then the doom and gloom of what the next month and a half will look like in terms of our diets imposes itself upon us. Holiday parties, desserts sitting around at work, pressure to eat from family and friends, Christmas and then New Years! And probably some comfort food to relieve the stress of the holidays to really kill your dreams of being healthy and having the body you truly deserve. And they’re all justified as we tell ourselves around Thanksgiving, “It’s okay, I’ll be back in the gym in the New Year.”
It doesn’t have to be this way! You can still enjoy your holiday foods, stay healthy, and make progress toward your desired body composition over the long term. Balance is key, and honest self-reporting can and will be necessary to hold you accountable for remaining disciplined when necessary. Research shows that people generally do not gain weight linearly throughout the year. The average American will gain 0.5 to 2 pounds of body weight per year, but this mostly occurs in the 6-week period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
Here are a few tools you can use or concepts to keep in mind to stay on track while on vacation.
one.) 80/20 principle. This principle uses moderation and some basic rules of consistency to help us move towards our goals. This goal is not for people preparing for bodybuilding competitions. Maintaining a strict diet that leaves no room for fun is unrealistic for long-term goals. This principle can also be called a form of “Flexible Diet”, which I have written about before.
Essentially, this principle states that as long as you stick to healthy, clean eating habits eighty percent of the time, you’ll allow yourself to spend about twenty percent of the time. This is a great way to eat some of your favorite foods and still stay on track for fitness success. You can enjoy cake after dinner on Thanksgiving, milkshake with your kids, and pizza on weekends. This reduces our embarrassment when we spend consuming too many calories at one meal a day or several meals throughout the week.
There are limits to this too! And the obvious danger is that perhaps we are being a little too flexible with our diet and underreporting to ourselves what we are actually eating. It can be dangerous to not be honest with yourself when using this flexible eating style, especially because you are not counting your macronutrients. When you eat certain foods or overeat them, yes, you may temporarily feel and look a little more bloated even though you’re eating mostly healthy, and that’s okay. If you’re staying active at the gym, you may change your perspective that you’re using those calories as fuel for a good workout. I always like to eat a big personal record after a day of eating junk food the day before! Make it clear how often you use that “20%” to eat your fun foods, and be honest when you need to dial it back. And if you really must, yes, calculate the actual percentage of how often you eat clean and eat for fun.
2.) Stay active! You don’t have to be the person who does the 5K on Thanksgiving, but if you do I admire you and think you’re awesome! Sometimes this means you need to get back to the gym or physical activity the day after a vacation or cheat meal. Personally, I’ve found that my best workouts come after a high-calorie day or after a high-calorie meal a few hours before a workout. This may not be possible on big days like Thanksgiving and Christmas, but if you make sure you exercise on a day when you know you’ll be indulging in naughty treats, you can rest assured that those extra calories will be spent for good. to use.
Ultimately, it’s about balance and self-awareness. If intuitive dieting or flexible dieting hasn’t worked for you in the past, it’s okay to be strict and measure your food and calories as long as you stick to your limits. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas everyone!