5 ways to maintain your health and fitness routine over the Christmas period

5 ways to maintain your health and fitness routine over the Christmas period

With the summer having been and gone, and autumn in full swing, it can only mean one thing: Christmas is coming! Everybody loves the festive season, but unfortunately it can result in a lot of overindulgence that throws us off our health and fitness regimes and leaves us feeling groggy and sluggish.

If you’re guilty of excess snacking, over-eating and dodging exercise throughout the festive period, you’ll be reassured to hear that it’s possible to enjoy yourself over Christmas without falling off the bandwagon. And, here I’ll be showing you how.

Create a fitness schedule
Many people associate the festive period with downtime spent lounging around, eating and not much else. But, if you’re guilty of ditching the gym to go home and cosy up in front of the fire with a tin of Quality Street, creating a fitness schedule will be useful. This can be something as simple as making a note on your phone of which days you’ll be training on and what areas of the body you’ll be working, or writing it down in your diary planner. Either way, having it in front of you will hold you accountable for going, especially if you tick the workouts off as you go.

You can ensure you stick to this schedule by packing your gym bag the day before, so you can just pick it up on a morning and don’t have the opportunity to ‘forget’ it.

Keep on top of meal prep
What many people don’t realise is that no matter how often you go to the gym, your diet will inevitably determine your results. Meal preparation is a great way to keep on top of your health and fitness all year round, but especially when festive temptation is all around you. And, while you might not be able to think of anything worse than eating your packed lunch while everyone’s tucking into chocolates around the office, you’ll need to make sure you’re properly fuelling your body if you’re going to be working out. Of course, you can have the odd festive treat here and there, but in general you should be sticking to healthy main meals.

To stay on track, I recommend stocking up on a variety of storage containers, like this fresh food box set from Plastic Box Shop. Not only are there options for storing your lunch, but the smaller ones will hold any fruit, nuts or healthy bakes you take to snack on. Plus, as they’re re-usable, you’ll be reducing the amount of disposable waste you create: it’s a win-win really!

Have a workout buddy
It can be easy to talk yourself out of exercising or convince yourself to grab that quick chocolate bar. But, having a workout buddy can help to save your health and fitness regime from rapidly declining over the festive period. As well as motivating each other to go to the gym, you can also create weekly menus between you to ensure you’re staying on track. These can be designed specifically for you by personal trainers in the gym, or you can download an app that you can use to track your eating and get recipe inspiration from, like MyFitnessPal.

As previously mentioned, writing things down can hold you accountable and keep you on the straight and narrow. And, knowing somebody else is on the same regime as you is likely to push you to stick to it, and could generate some healthy competition between you. If your workout buddy can’t make a training session or has had an off week, make sure you don’t get derailed by them.

Find a way to healthily satisfy your cravings
When everybody is getting into the party spirit, it can be difficult to turn down the goodies people are offering you. But, don’t get healthy eating confused with depriving yourself: we all need fats, sugar and carbs to function, so you don’t need to dodge these. However, if you don’t trust yourself to eat these in moderation, why not try making some tasty treats that are still healthy?

Mince pies are full of saturated fat and sugar, but there are ways you can enjoy these without an overload of calories. The British Heart Foundation has some great recipes for guilt-free Christmas treats, including these healthy mince pies: they’re only 145kcal per 100g, so they make a great festive treat to get you through the period.

Start exercising at home
With Christmas on the horizon, the cold and unpredictable weather is well and truly here. And, while it won’t phase some brave gym-goers, it can put many of us off from stepping outside of our cosy homes. But, this isn’t an excuse to ditch your scheduled workout altogether. Instead, you should look at purchasing some home gym equipment.

While not everyone will be able to splurge on treadmills and cross-trainers, you can buy items like free-weights for reasonable prices. Fitness Superstore stocks a great range of fitness equipment including dumbbell sets, which will keep you on top of your regime even when you can’t face the miserable weather outside.

Keeping on top of your health and fitness over the Christmas period can seem impossible, but with my top five tips you’ll be entering the New Year feeling fresh!