So we’re fast approaching another Christmas and New Years Eve.
December is very much a celebration month for a lot of us.
Lots of meeting up with friends, Christmas parties, wine, beer, prosecco,
chocs, mince pies, and plenty of festive cheer.
Anything between 4-8 hangovers are pretty standard in December.
As with anything like this though there is always a price to pay.
Typically that price will be 7-10lbs of pure fat – most of which seems
to gather around the waistline.
Don’t worry though…..
“I’ll sort it out in the New Year.”
“I’m going to join a gym”
“Next year will be different”
“I’m getting a Personal Trainer in January”
“I cannot wait to detox in Jan – no booze for a whole month”….as she
tops up another glass of Tesco’s half price prosecco!
IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS
Now before I go any further I think it’s important to state that
I’m NOT going to come across as all righteous and recommend
you just drink soda waters with lemon juice. – ’cause that would just
be boring.
I’m not one of these Personal Trainers that only eats tins of tuna
and steamed spinach all day. – I did actually try that a couple of years
ago. Managed 3 days on the trot…..and haven’t been able to eat a
tin of tuna on it’s own since!
I like a drink – right now I’m well into Grey Goose vodka – ice cold.
I like to eat good food – and lots of it.
I love it when my kids open a bag of crisps – just so I can have a couple
without having to open my own bag.
This time of year (when cold outside) I love to find a nice country pub
that has a fire going and then drink a few pints of strong lager or bitter.
I live with a wife that LOVES her red wine. None of this crappy Jacobs
Creek either – she loves the New Zealand pinot noir wines that you find
in Waitrose at around £10 a bottle!!
BUT
whenever I do any of the above I like to mentally map out my
debits and credits balance sheet.
Get The Balance Right
First of all the incorrect strategy (that I know so many people use) is
to just not eat.
“In order to eat this chocolate and drink my wine I will skip breakfast and dinner”
NO!
That makes things worse.
BUT
what you can do is just make sure that you’re eating lots of protein and veggies.
You might even need to keep things a little bit boring in order to have a
few drinks in the
evening – but that’s better than not eating at all or
having a huge carb fest throughout the day.
Try and stick to lean meats (like chicken or as it’s
December turkey) and green veggies like
broccoli and spinach.
ALSO
Exercise on the day that you’re gong to be having a drink.
Torch a load of calories.
Lift some weights.
Do some High Intensity work that gets the heart rate pounding.
Keep on top of your exercise.
If you don’t work out already then start.
If anything December is the best time of year to start. You’ll avoid all of the
January new starters, get ahead of the game, go through the initial
muscle soreness that everyone has at first and then hit the ground running
in January.
PLEASE DON’T
just ignore your exercise though until January. ( I know so many people that do this)
Think of it as your own debit and credit balance sheet
Now in an ideal world we wouldn’t have anything in that debit column,
but this is the season to be jolly right? ……and without those debits
it would be hard work to be jolly.
So just make sure that for every debit action there is an equal credit
one.
It won’t cancel everything out but it’s certainly a great way to minimise
the potential damage that you wake up to in 2016.
Enjoy,
Ricky