By Janet Luhrs, www.simpleliving.com
I feel your pain! It’s hard enough to stay motivated to keep exercising during normal times, but during the holiday season? Are you kidding me?
Impossible.
But wait! It doesn’t have to be! Here’s how: simple tricks and planning ahead for staying fit during the busy holidays.
1. Plan around yourself by putting your workout dates on your calendar right now. Don’t wait or you know exactly what will happen – it won’t happen! So do me a favor and stop reading for just a second, and put regular dates on your calendar now. Make sure the times you choose are easy for you to do, and then you’ll be way more likely to keep it up. I’m patient. I’ll wait until you take a few minutes to do this right now.
2. Remind yourself that if you keep fit during the holidays, you won’t feel like you’re starting behind on January 1st with – egads – the horrible seasonal weight gain! Who needs that?
3. Learn to do mini-workouts: It is amazing how it’s possible to squeeze in mini workouts throughout the day and really keep your body going. What is a mini workout? Doing anything that causes your heart rate to spike up. The mini workouts I list below will burn a minimum of 100 calories in a relatively short period.
- Do a 10 minute brisk walk before and after dinner on those nights when you get home too late.
- Get down and do a series of pushups, crunches, and lunges for just 7 minutes.
- Choose your favorite 4 yoga poses and do a series of those for 7 minutes.
- Park at the farthest end of the parking lot and walk as fast as you can to your office or the store.
- Alternate between the following for a total of 7 to 10 minutes total:
- One minute of stair stepping up and down your office stairwell
- One minute of chair dips
- One minute of arm curls
- One minute of abs
- One minute of lunges or squats
Learn to sprinkle these throughout the day and guess what? You’ll be surprised at how much energy you’ll have. Plus, you’ll see how much these mini workouts help to maintain and even increase your fitness over the holidays. Merry fitness to you!
Featured photo source: Pixabay.com
