Holiday Fitness Doesn’t Have to be All or Nothing
Written by Charissa Sutliff
Holiday season is busy, we might be traveling, our work schedule is not consistent, so with all these things our training and nutrition habits might not be as consistent or as “ideal” as we would like. Around holiday season, many may fall prey to the “all or nothing” mindset where because you won’t be able to perfectly stick to your training schedule or your nutrition, that you stop altogether and pick back up when life is easier, isn’t so busy, things are slower. When does life really slow down and get easier though? It doesn’t.
What I want to make sure is that we don’t press pause during the holidays. I want us to have a mindset that we keep moving our pile of dirt in some way rather than to just stop altogether. Life will always be busy and complicated so taking ownership of our health, fitness and nutrition starts with learning how to build skills needed to make small efforts toward these things consistently in the midst of real life. We won’t make progress or maintain it if we only make efforts when things are perfect. We must do something with what we have.
There are few phrases and mindsets that I love to help with this:
Something, is better than nothing.
Done is better than perfect.
Aim for better not perfect.
“Training is like moving a big pile of dirt. Some days you get a shovel. Some days you get a spoon. As long as you move a little bit of dirt everyday, you’re heading towards your goal” Love this mindset and perspective I saw on @whiteboarddaily
When it comes to the holidays and even life being busy in general ask yourself questions like:
What CAN I do?
It might not be perfect, but what is a little something I can do?
I also like to use the dial method.
How to use the ‘dial method’:
Maybe when life is going smoothly, you can crank your training dial up to an 8 where you are training 5days per week. However, maybe for a small amount of time your dial gets turned down to a 5 or a 4 and your non negotiable minimum is 3 group classes per week.
Maybe your nutrition is at an 8 where you meal prep every meal and fuel your body with nutrient dense foods 80-90% of the time. However, during the holidays because you will be eating with friends and family, you turn your dial down to 6 and enjoy meals with them, trusting that a few meals here and there in the big picture of things won’t ruin your progress.
Holiday Health Takeaways
Don’t press pause during the holidays. Keep moving the dirt, some days you will move more than others. The key is to just keep moving some, stay consistent. Don’t quit or pause altogether. Set a minimum # of workouts to get to per week i.e. 2 workouts per week is non negotiable.
Don’t press pause all together in your nutrition either. Keep going in little ways. Maybe that is setting a non negotiable of one meal a day that is stocked full of veggies and lean protein.
Other health goals? Keep chipping away at them. Your efforts don’t have to be all or nothing. They don’t have to be perfect, or none at all. Get into the mindset of always doing something, and nudging things into a little better. Pressing pause, and quitting only trains us to keep pressing pause. It doesn’t help us learn how to make time for health and fitness when life is busy in the context of real human life.
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