If it’s not too soon for scenes like this one in stores, then it’s not too soon to plan your fitness over the holiday season.
Imagine waking up on January 1st already feeling fit, energized, and proud of yourself. No need for a resolution, no guilt from too many holiday treats, no sluggish start to the new year.
It’s possible — if you start today. The holiday season is coming, and your health doesn’t need to take a backseat.
So, let’s talk about what it means for healthy habits around exercise, eating right, getting enough sleep, and managing stress.
- If you’re not already exercising regularly, this is a great time to start. The seasons are changing and, as the days get shorter and cooler, it can be easier to snap new routines into each day or week.
- Maintaining a commitment to work out will help you manage social demands of the coming months – and help you resist/manage those temptations to overindulge that you know are coming.
- Sit down with a calendar to plan the next three months. Include days and times you’ll exercise. Add travel, parties and other social commitments – will there be challenges or temptations? We have plenty of strategies – from eating a light dinner before you go to a party with heavy appetizers, to being the designated driver on nights when you might otherwise drink too much. Simple planning can help you manage the whole season.
- When receiving invitations and planning commitments, remember that “No, thank you” is a complete sentence. It’s entirely OK to decline an invitation, and you don’t owe anyone an explanation. It’s so easy during this time of year to get overwhelmed with obligations, to fall out of good habits, and to create resentments. Remember to just say no sometimes.
- Start your 2025 resolution now. You probably know what it will be, so why not spend the next few months prepping for it. Imagine how ahead-of-the-game you’ll feel on January 1 when you wake up having already gone to the gym for a few weeks. When you wake up without a hangover or feeling stuffed and lethargic. When you wake up ready to tackle the day and the year!
Believe it or not, the holidays could be the PERFECT time to start working out.
“It’s so easy to say you’re too busy during the holidays, so you’ll wait until the new year,” says Rick Mayo, founder and CEO of Alloy Personal Training.
“Flip the script and do it now,” Rick says. “Use this as an opportunity more than an obstacle to say, ‘I’m going to work out during the holidays and this will pay massive dividends in the future,’ because there are going to be other seasons of life that are busy.”
Plus, exercise helps you manage stress. And you’ll be ahead of the New Year’s Resolution rush!
No. 1 on your list: Move that body every day.
Remember, it could be the key to your whole holiday season – and beyond.
Holly Kouvo is a personal trainer, functional aging specialist, senior fitness specialist, brain health trainer, writer, and speaker.