My Journey With Health And Fitness – Surviving The Holiday Season

Well, after my small anxiety attack on Saturday I seem to have caught up with most things for Christmas. The shopping is pretty much all done and tomorrow afternoon the wrapping station will be set up in the garage. I figure a couple of hours and everything will be all set. That simply leaves doing grocery shopping for the 24th and 25th which I will make sure is all organized. Yep, taking a few minutes to plan it all out worked for me.

Last night was my first Christmas party of the season. It was with a group that I volunteer for and they took us all out for Chinese food. Now there was a lot of food put on our table and on top of that the wine was pretty free flowing. In the next 12 days I have a family holiday dinner party, another volunteer event, a special dinner out with my husband, our annual Christmas Eve open house and of course, Christmas dinner. Boy, that sure adds up to a lot of food and calories.

After last night’s heavy carb dinner at which I may have consumed too much food I can honestly say I did not want to be on the treadmill this morning. However, I reminded myself it is just one step at a time and by the 5 minute mark I started focusing on how I am going to get through the holiday season unscathed. Don’t get me wrong, I do not believe in completely depriving myself for the sake of a few pounds. Rather, I am working on maintaining my workouts without the normal breaks that I have taken in the past couple years. Instead, I am keeping it to status quo.

I admit, it will be a little easier this year simply because of the timing of the dates. For example, Christmas Day is on a Sunday and I don’t workout on Sundays (the same for New Year’s Day). Christmas Eve is a Saturday which is the day I do my lightest workout (only 1 1/2 hours instead of 2 1/2 hours) allowing for lots of time to get the house put together. I already have my workout plans for when we are at the condo for a month which should keep me in a pretty good place. On top of that I will try to watch my food intake especially around dealing with carbs the next few weeks and it is easy to eat healthy in Mexico due to the availability of a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.

So I think I am going to survive this holiday season but still be able to enjoy myself. A little planning is helping me find the appropriate balance.