Christmas is now just 4 days away and for most people who are conscious of the health and fitness (or weight) this can leave them with a slight dilemma.
What should I do with food and drink over the holiday season?
I think the place to begin to answer this is what result do you want or put another way, what would success look like for you come the first week of January?
If you’ve read my blog before you would be familiar with my thought of starting with the end in mind.
Once again this in reference to a specific set of time, not the end of you being fit and healthy because that’s not how it works.
In this final few days before the Christmas festivities begin, I will talk through this topic with all my clients to determine what they are thinking and what they want to do.
Even those who have a long-term goal of losing weight are in the majority, going to put that on hold for a week so they can enjoy the holidays without having a big calorie restriction.
In plain terms, success for these people means that their bodyweight the first week of January will be pretty much the same as it is this last week before Christmas.
So for the next week, we are altering our goal but in a way that does not set us back weeks or potentially a month if they were to just eat and drink everything in sight.
This will be achieved by altering their calorie and macro goals for the next 7 days so instead of having a calorie deficit, we will run them at maintenance level calories.
As always, this is adjusted based upon activity.
If they are not training for a week or so, their calorie output will be less so this has to be factored into our calculations.
For example, I have a client currently losing weight by training with me twice per week, going swimming once per week, walking 70k steps per week and eating around 2,000 calories per day.
In the past 5 weeks, this combination has led to a weight loss of 14 pounds.
He is now going away for a week so will not be training with me, he won’t be going swimming but he will continue to get in 70k steps.
His new calorie goal to maintain his bodyweight is an average of 3,000 calories per day.
This to him will feel like a huge increase and although i’m sure he will use his full allocation on some days, he won’t on others so there is still an outside chance he may still come back to me lighter than when he left.
We will see…
For others, I’m raising their calories only on a certain number of days so they can pretty much eat what they want (without going stupid) and stay on track.
Weight management is always a numbers game, calories in versus calories out.
By having a solid understanding of this you too can enjoy the holidays and stay on track to meet your long-term goals.
You can likely eat drink what you like but probably just not as much of it as you’d like.
Thanks for reading, have a great day.
Craig
Do you need confidential help with your health, fitness or nutrition? I have a range of services available, with Personal Training in my Private Gym in Manchester, also at your home or workplace in the surrounding areas. For clients further afield, I provide Online Personal Training, Nutritional Consultancy & Private Fitness Holidays.