With Christmas just around the corner, we’re all comfortably settling into a month of chocolate for breakfast, cheese boards, cosy nights in and even more chocolate.
December is the time of year when we can all take a big breath out, relax and look forward to next year. For any health fanatics, Christmas might feel like a time to panic.
With your days full of festive activities and your plates filled with tasty treats, it might feel like staying fit at this time of year is impossible. If you’re usually fit or are looking to improve your health, the last thing you should do is see December as a hall pass to not push yourself and to confine yourself to your sofa.
It’s more than possible to stay fit while not restricting yourself this Christmas, and at POW8R, we’re here to pass on our top tricks for staying fit this Christmas while still embracing all the best bits.
Why Staying Active at Christmas Matters
You might be wondering why exactly you should worry about staying active at Christmas.
Some of the reasons why we think it’s so important include:
Mental Benefits
Though Christmas is one of the most wonderful times of the year, it’s also a time of year when seasonal depression likes to make an appearance. As days get shorter, we get less exposure to Vitamin D, which can make our moods dip.
Exercise helps counteract this dip by releasing valuable endorphins that naturally boost your mood and help reduce feelings of stress and anxiety. Yes, exercise can make you happier. We can all get a bit lethargic on the run-up to Christmas, so exercise can provide a much-needed energy boost.
Immune System Boost
Another unfortunate part of winter is illness. Once one person starts sneezing, you’re on a countdown of when you’ll be next. Regular exercise has been proven to help strengthen your immune system, making you better equipped to fight off winter illnesses, so you can enjoy the festivities without being bogged down with a cold.
Maintaining a Routine
If you’re someone who regularly exercises or you like to have a routine in your life, maintaining a consistent workout routine can be a great way to keep your schedule and keep a sense of consistency throughout your day.
This is especially important if you’ve been released from work just before Christmas and risk losing a solid routine, as scheduling dedicated workout times can help you keep that routine intact.
Staying on Track With Your Fitness Journey
If you’re on a fitness journey, though it may be tempting, one of the worst things that you can do is take a break, no matter how tempting it might be. Ask anyone who has taken a break from their usual fitness routine: one skipped session becomes a skipped week, then a month, and the next thing you know, it’s 4 months down the road, and you realise you’ve completely fallen out of the routine.
Consistency is key to getting the best results, and not maintaining your routine over the Christmas break might disrupt the consistency you’ve built.
Remember, not every session has to be an hour-long intensive workout; even a quick 20-minute home workout can help keep you on track and maintain your fitness levels.
Tip 1: Embrace Hybrid Training for Holiday Efficiency
A great way to ensure you cover all aspects of your workout without taking up too much of your time during the holiday period is to utilise hybrid training. Hybrid training combines strength, cardio, and mobility, ensuring that all aspects of your physical fitness are covered.
Making the most of training practices such as HIIT is a great way to ensure you’re working your body properly and making the most of the time you’re dedicating to exercise.
Tip 2: Use Technology to Stay Accountable
Technology has completely elevated the way that we approach fitness. With the introduction of wearable technology and fitness apps, improving your discipline has never been easier.
Wearable tech allows you to track all the important elements of maintaining a healthy routine, such as your steps, the hours you’ve slept and even your heart rate, while fitness apps send you push notifications that remind you to exercise, and because they’re so conveniently accessible, it’s easy to fit in a quick workout no matter where you are.
Tip 3: Focus on Functional Fitness
Functional fitness is a training approach that emphasises exercises mimicking real-life movements to enhance everyday physical activities. It focuses on improving strength, flexibility, balance, and endurance through varied and often multi-joint movements.
This method often involves routines that can be adapted to individuals of all fitness levels, making it accessible and practical.
Focusing on this type of fitness can help you maintain a consistent workout routine and make it more manageable. It can also help you keep up with all of the Christmas tasks this year, like carrying in your big Christmas shop, getting involved with Christmas activities, or even just having fun with friends.
Tip 4: Focus on Strategic Nutrition, Not Restriction
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is about more than just working out; it’s about making sure that your body gets the nutrition it needs. Christmas is the time of year when we all indulge and enjoy plenty of delicious treats, as we should.
A big mistake that you could make is completely restricting yourself from enjoying great food, because that just isn’t sustainable, and you might find yourself binge eating as a result of these restrictions. Don’t stop yourself from enjoying the food you love, just practice mindful eating around it.
Your progress won’t be erased by eating a couple of chocolates, but it will be erased if you don’t hit your protein goals or don’t take in the nutrients you need to get through the day. You have to remember that we miss out on a lot of Vitamin D, so you’ll likely feel a bit bogged down.
Eating nutritionally balanced meals and working out means you don’t have to worry about enjoying all of the best bits about Christmas.
Tip 5: Set Realistic Goals
The worst thing that you can do is set unrealistic fitness goals. Are you really going to wake up at 6 am on Christmas morning to do a full workout? Probably not. If a goal feels unrealistic, you’re not going to want to do it.
Make sure that you’re not pushing yourself beyond what is physically possible for you to follow, and you’ll find that maintaining consistency over the Christmas period is actually a lot more straightforward than you may have initially thought.
Discovering what is realistic for you might take some trial and error, but once you figure it out
You know your body better than anyone, and you know your motivation better than anyone else, too, so listen to it and don’t set goals that are impossible to achieve and leave you unmotivated.
Stay Fit This Christmas With POW8R
Through this guide, we hope to have emphasised that it is more than possible to enjoy the festive experience while remaining fit. At POW8R, we are passionate about helping all our clients develop sustainable, healthy lifestyles through the POW8R app.
When you download the POW8R app, you’re not just downloading another workout app; you’re connecting with a whole community, accessing a catalogue of recipes and taking the steps towards an all-around healthier lifestyle.
Download the POW8R app today and find out how easy it can be to enjoy Christmas with the right guidance on your side.