Helpful Holiday Hacks to Help You Stay On Track
Helpful Holiday Hacks to Help You Stay On Track
We love the holidays for their plentiful food, family, and fun. But sometimes, holiday cheer can lead to increasing unwanted body fat and even losing the muscle gains you’ve been working so hard to achieve. Don’t let this happen to you! Do your pre-holiday menu planning now, with our Helpful Holiday Hacks:
Plan for cheat meals
Ah, food, celebration…and temptation. That can be too much distraction if you’re working on building muscle mass. Instead of trying to avoid all your favorite foods and being unhappy this holiday season, just plan splurging and cheat meals into your holiday fun.
When you plan for cheat meals during the holidays, you can stay on track and be happy knowing you spent the holidays living your best life.
Give yourself some leeway
The more time you spend with loved ones, the less free time you’ll have to hit the gym. (Unless they also hit the gym!) Make a plan to carve out some gym time amongst the friends and family times.
And, plan for a little extra time in the gym working out or plan your other meals around the big ones to even it out. During the holiday season, it’s almost inevitable that you’re going to consume a few more calories than usual, so plan for it!
Take a daily green or supplement
During the holidays, we tend to get too relaxed about what we eat. Make sure you’re still eating enough vitamins and nutrients. If you’ve been sticking to a strict diet, supplement, and workout routine, your body may feel horrible if you’re not treating it with the same care. Our suggestion is to drink a daily green juice or even take a couple of supplements during this time period to ensure your body is staying healthy over the holidays.
Visit GATSport.com for daily green and supplement options.
Track Everything
Ever hear the saying, “The little things add up”? There’s truth to that. If you eat 10 times at a party and each time you eat, it’s 100 calories, that’s 1000 calories — which is a large portion of your daily calories. Plus, if you have a full meal and dessert, the calories go up, and it doesn’t include calories from the rest of your day.
Sometimes, when we say, “oh it’s just a little bit of mashed potato” or “it’s only an extra cookie” we often forget how many times we do that at one party and end up consuming too many calories. Over the holidays, keep a close eye on what you’re putting into your body. If you have to, literally take note of everything you’re eating and drinking. Just keeping a record of it could be the difference between staying on track and falling off track.
Food Prep
The holiday season can get busy. It can fly by and leave you standing there asking where it went.
Don’t use the holidays as an excuse to slack off on your food prep. In reality, food prep may be more important during the holidays than at any other time of the year. Make sure you’re sticking to your meal prepping. It may save you, when you decide to take a cheat meal.
Learn more about the importance of food prep by reading the 8 Tips for Bodybuilding Meal Prep and Nutrition.
Correct Portion Size
It’s fun to splurge over the holidays, but in order to save your gains, try to stick to the correct portion sizes.
It’s so easy to overeat when you just grab food and put it on your plate. Stick to the correct portion sizes and that continuity will ease you right back into your normal regimen once the holidays are over.
Next-Meal Rule
If you have one really heavy meal, or a cheat meal, that you regret, don’t just say forget it and give up! It’s easier to stick to your habits, then to have to re-train your brain and body.
So, if you’re prepared and follow our holiday hacks to help you stay on track, you no longer have to fear those holiday meals with your family. Here are some holiday hacks to help you stay on track:
One cheat meal is fine, but once you get into a bad habit where every meal is unplanned, you’re going to have a really tough time breaking the new habit and reforming the old one.
There you have it! Those were our holiday hacks to stay on track. You don’t have to let this holiday season sabotage your hard work. You’re in control if you have a plan and put your mind to it!
