Healthy Holidays- 3 Tips to Finish Strong!

 

Tis the season!  Yes, already.  It is mid October and this is the time of year when the struggle to stay on track with health, fitness and nutrition is really put to the test!   The struggle of creating healthy holidays is REAL. Candy bowls are everywhere! We easily fall into the habit of walking into a place of business, such as the insurance office or the eye doctor and are faced with a making a decision.  The excitement of last January’s goals is all too often long gone.  It’s time to gain a healthy holiday perspective.

 

If we aren’t prepared, we will slip into the default mode of reaching into the bowl and grabbing our favorite treat.  Too much of that and we have started ball rolling toward more and more sugar cravings.  Not only this but as the weather declines and gets a little more what I like to call “hunker downey” our motivation to get out and move decreases greatly.

It’s down right spooky  how many difficult decisions and thoughts we are about to face in the coming months:

Do I have time to go to the gym? There’s so much to do.

Is it really worth it? I mean, I’m so off track from where I wanted to be…

Pumpkin or Pecan?

Snickers or Reeses?

Netflix or Hulu?

 

NO!  Pick yourself up, dust yourself off …we’ve got work to do and THERE’S STILL TIME.

 

At the time of this post there are 10 weeks left in the year and a person could still realistically lose 10-20 pounds of fat if they dial in their nutrition and fitness.  On the other hand, the typical reported weight gain from Halloween to New Years is 7-10#…Which camp do you want to be in?

 

I knew you were with me on this!

 

Here’s how we are going to do it… REFRESH. REFRAME. RESET

 

First, we have got to get our mindset right.

 

Step 1: Live in the moment

 

It is so easy to start shifting your focus to all of the busy-ness that lies ahead:  Halloween costumes for the kids, getting firewood in, Thanksgiving guests, hunting trips, birthdays (we have 3 in our family between Nov 28-Dec 28!) year end paperwork, snow shoveling, decorating the house, Christmas shopping (and photos and cards – oh my!)

 

Stop!

 

The madness hasn’t arrived yet so don’t let those thoughts of crazy days take over your mind just yet.  Keep calm. I have a plan!

 

*Get those thoughts on paper.

*List out the tasks that will take up your time in the coming months (you can borrow from my list above).

*Schedule them.  Put them in your calendar right now.  You may have to adjust them a little as their due dates get closer but for now, those thoughts and tasks have a home.

*Let them go. They now have a specific place.  They are out of your brain and on paper.  Don’t let them take up space.  You’ll need that space to focus on your goals!

 

I feel better already!

 

Step 2:  Decide why you want to achieve these goals that we are about to set.

When you can attach a strong emotional reason “why” to your goals you are MUCH more likely to achieve them.  Here are some ideas about choosing an emotional why:

 

Take just a few minutes right now to think about and  write down you reason why.  Choose something that chokes you up a little bit.

*Put this why in as many places as you can think of:

*Dashboard of your car – to remind you at the fast food drive thru

*Wallet – to remind you when you go to purchase a meal that doesn’t support your “why” – in case you forgot to look at the dashboard.

*Bathroom Mirror – To help get your day started right

*Pantry – to remind you not to eat like your 4 year old

*Refrigerator – Because there are so many decisions to make and you’ll want to remember why you are about to make the right one

*On the little black dress that you will wear to the party – which you should hang in plain site until the day of the party

 

Step 3: Re-frame old thoughts   

This one is powerful.  If you are someone that has typically just given in to the pressures of the holiday season this one will be crucial for you.  You see, we often define ourselves by certain quite conversations we have in our heads.  Here is an example:

“Well, every year I put on weight during the holidays.  It’s just too hard.  I’ll just get back into it in January” Quieter voice: “even though I haven’t actually lost that extra weight for the past three years”

Now I don’t relay this mental conversation to be mean, I just know from my years of training that you are not the only one who has this message playing in your head!

I am going to give you the tools to fix this.  While we need to acknowledge our old ways because our brain will know that we are lying to it if we suddenly pop up with a mantra such as “I am rock star at navigating the holidays and coming out victorious on the other side!”.  While this is an excellent affirmation, some of us will still hear that quite voice that says “Ok now, who are you fooling?” So, we are going to appease our very smart brain while at the same time allowing it to pivot.  Here we go…

The critical pivot point it the “but”.  It looks like this:

” I have never been very good at navigating the holidays BUT ever since I followed the advice of my trainer to reset my goals during the 4th quarter, I am a ROCKSTAR”

 

Do you see what we did there? We acknowledged the old ways, we gave it a place to pivot to a new way by adding a “but”. This new way of resetting during the 4th quarter is the pivot point from which new habits and new conversations in your head will arise.  I LOVE this technique.  You can use various things as your pivot point.  Maybe you learned something new from a book or a blog post (well, maybe even this one :).  Maybe your doctor made a very strong suggestion that you get healthy.  Maybe the “why” that you created above is REALLY powerful.

 

Create your “new normal” conversation.  Fill in the blanks:

 

I used to   (bad habit here)  BUT ever since  (Pivot point, why or event here)   I (new excellent habit here)  !

 

 

Now, lets move forward and set some goals

 

Step 4:  Hit the reset button on your New Year’s goals!

Keep in mind that while much of the year has passed it may not be realistic  to hit your original goal of say losing #50 but there IS still time to adjust, redirect and modify your goal.   We still have a whole quarter of the year to go! Don’t just toss it aside.

For example, just as we break our year into quarters, we can do the same for the goal you set back last January.  Let’s take that #50 and break it down into quarters also.  That would be about 10-12 pounds per 3 month quarter.  With  10 weeks left in the year there -s still time to drop your weight by about 10-12 pounds, possibly even 20 pound of you are really feeling ambitious.  Just know that in order to lose 2# a week (any more is not a safe way to go) then you have to have a really well dialed in plan for both your fitness and nutrition.  If you are needing something like this I can certainly help you in  a few one on one consultations.  If 20 pounds sounds like a lot to try to accomplish, just go with 12 pound or so and you are still going to look and feel amazing by the end of the year.

 

Reset your goals:

1 – Take your original goal – way back from last January and break it down.  Ex – I want to lose weight

2 – Make it very specific: Ex – I want to lose  50 pounds turns into ” I will lose 15 pound in this last quarter of the year”

3 – How am I going to do that: Ex – I am going to clean up my diet by eating whole real foods and going to the gym 4 days a week – on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  I will go to my favorite Group Exercise class or hire a personal trainer.

4 – Look at the 4 areas of Fitness, Nutrition, Lifestyle and Mindset wise to make this goal happen?

What are you going to change in each o f these areas to reach your goals for the next quarter

 

Here are some examples:

Nutrition: I am going to eat whole, real food and include vegetables and protein at every meal

Fitness:  I am going to workout 4 days a week by going to my favorite group exercise class

Mindset: Why am I doing this? Think about how proud you will be when you can look back and pat yourself on teh back for not throwing in the towel in the fourth quarter.

Lifestyle:  I am going to cut out 1 hour of TV at night so I can go to bed earlier to allow me to wake up rested for the early morning gym workouts

 

Post it in your calendar – commit to it!

 

ACTION STEP:

Reset those goals using the template above.

 

I am really excited for you and the healthy holidays to come.   You are going to feel awesome when you look back over the last few months of the year and know that you finished strong!