Last Friday night my healthy eating failed miserably. Due to a family tradition involving biscuits, lollies, trains, tiny teddies, pretzels and icing I ended up in a food coma on the couch, unable to move for 15 minutes.
With so many treats laid out in front of me and no one telling me ‘don’t do it’ I was in trouble from the moment i walked in the door. I ate a few of everything, then a few more.
My stomach felt like it was gonna give up on me and go find someone else to live inside. Nothing about this situation was good. Then we had our Bootcamp Christmas party the next night.
You know what it’s like this time of year. It’s one party after the other.
Tis the eason to be jolly, not look jolly!
You are constantly rushing around trying to get to a party you often don’t want to be at to eat food you don’t really want to eat and drink more alcohol than you know you should.
What’s worse you already know you are going to fail on your healthy eating before you get there, and often give up on it early in the day just thinking about how bad you’re going to eat.
It doesn’t have to be like that. Here’s a few tricks that you could use to safeguard yourself from falling into a food coma or gaining weight leading up to Christmas.
1. Never go to a party starving
Eat good meals all day before a party, just like any other day. If you barely eat you will binge and then it’s all bad from there.
Sometimes you think that if you eat less early then it will make up for the excess bad food you eat later. But you’re better to go to the party full on quality food and only have a small sample of the delicacies that may be on offer.
2. Don’t feel obligated to eat the party food if you don’t want it
This is where I struggled the other night. I didn’t want to eat it but it was in front of me and I felt obliged to try a few things.
Plus I’d already screwed up trick #2 and was starving before I made it there. I was doomed before I left my house.
So for the Christmas party I decided in advance I was not going to eat ice cream, and I actually followed through. I was quietly proud of my minor win over my inner cookie monster. And I didn’t want a food coma again.
Decide what you are prepared to eat and aren’t prepared to eat, then stick to it. You have to be black and white in your decisions or you will eat everything in sight.
3. Exercise before a big feast or night out
Even 10 minutes of hard training will help your body burn or use the excess food.
Just put your shoes and head outside. Run around the block as fast as you can as many times as would make up 10 minutes, then quit.
A bunch of us who were at the Christmas party were also at the Charity Bootcamp on that morning. These philanthropists also did themselves a favour and got some intense exercise in early to make up for what was to come later.
Do something like this and you will have switched your body to fat burning mode and reduced your chances of weight gain in only 10 minutes. Add in the other 2 tricks above and you’ll be set heading into any party you’ve got on.
Need some more ideas? I found this ‘12 Days of Christmas’ workout on Craig Ballantyne’s blog this morning for a quick workout or finisher. I’ve switched a few things up for my amusement.
12 Burpees burping
11 Decline pushups
10 Frog jumps a leaping
9 Break dancers dancing (per side)
8 Star jumps jumping
7 Bodyweight rows
6 Single leg squats
5 Spiderman pushups (per side)
4 Jumping lunges
3 Pullups or Chinups
2 More freaking burpees
And 1 thirty-second wall squat hold!
Give it a go and let me know how long it took you. And make sure all burpees are chest to floor!!!
Imagine if santa did this workout regularly instead of milk and cookies from everyone???
