The holiday season is nearly here, which means two things:
Lots of good food and time for leisure.
But this time of year can also lead to anxiety and frustration, especially in people who’ve been training hard for months and want to stay in shape.
Luckily, maintaining your fitness progress isn’t that difficult. Let’s dive into four tactics for staying in shape during the upcoming holiday.
1. Keep Yourself Accountable
Accountability is one of the most overlooked tools we can use to stay on track and reach our goals. Why? Because we are social creatures and we care about what others think of us.
Being accountable to another person makes you much more likely to follow through with your plans even if you don’t feel like it.
An excellent way to leverage accountability is to work with a personal trainer. Having a coach increases your chances of staying consistent with your training because they expect you to show up and do the work.
2. Make a Schedule
Having some time for rest and recreational actii8vities is the essence of any holiday season. I encourage you to take a breath and enjoy yourself for a few days. But adhering to some form of a schedule is still beneficial, even during the holidays.
You don’t have to map out your entire day, but making a commitment like, “I’m going to hit the gym at 4:30 PM today,” is still a nice way to do some exercise and maintain your progress.
Working with a personal trainer is beneficial because you can set up training sessions and ensure that you’ll show up.
3. Set A Fun Holiday Challenge For Yourself
Training consistently is the essence of long-term fitness results. But doing the same thing repeatedly gets old, and many people lose the motivation to keep pushing themselves.
Fitness challenges are a fantastic way to shake things up, create some short-term objectives, and re-ignite your passion for working out. The holiday season is a great time for setting up challenges because you have something actionable to do and specific objectives to achieve. As such, you’re more likely to stay consistent and maintain your progress.
Your coach can help you put together a fun challenge to keep yourself active and on track during the holidays.
4. Reduce The Scope And Get It Done
I get it. The holidays can be hectic, and you might not have the time to keep up with your routine or do a challenge. You might not even want to do so. After all, you’ve worked hard for a year, so it’s only fair that you get a break.
That’s fine. I encourage you to relax for a bit and recharge your batteries.
Still, the holiday season doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t do any training. You can reduce the scope of your training and stay active. In doing so, you can keep the momentum going, prevent yourself from feeling guilty, and maintain your fitness progress.
Instead of doing your traditional training, cut the workload in half, get your blood moving, and call it a day. Alternatively, have a simple bodyweight routine at home. Or, why not try a different type of training for a couple of weeks? Instead of lifting weights, do some running or learn how to ice skate. Loosen up, experiment, stay active. You might find new activities you enjoy.