In the past, when I was asked how one should handle the typical Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, my answer would have been: Try to eat healthy but enjoy yourself a little.
As I get older and wiser, I realize that this was the dumbest idea I ever had. You see, when you are dieting, eating a bit more of flavorful food makes you want to eat even more of the above. And… disaster strikes and the diet is thrown off for weeks on end.
So the way I see it, there are really only two ways to handle it:
1. You make up your mind and diet through. By that I mean really diet, not the “I try to eat healthy wishy-washy nonsense”. I mean prep your food, eat your food, and deal with the comments and deprivation. Just stick your head in the tupper and nibble away.
2. Eat as you wish, but do not regret it! Go in with the mindset that diet-wise, this will be a lost day and be prepared to reel it back in on Friday.
Also, one bad meal is a drop in the bucket in terms of your long term fitness goals.
Unless you are a competitor or fitness model within weeks of a competition or a photo shoot, this one meal will make absolutely zero difference in your physique.
However, if you are the kind of person that will just not stop after one cheat meal then it might be appropriate to diet straight through winter.
Regardless, the reason why people gain weight during the season is that they basically eat straight from Thanksgiving to January 1st. In those six weeks you can easily put on 15 lbs. Again, if you are ok with that, then by all means enjoy the cookies and the eggnog but don’t you dare complaining thereafter.
No matter you did Thursday, this workout will get you back on the horse come Friday .
It is a whole body workout with set up as such that you pair a compound movement with a smaller one and train in the Charles Poliquin way, where you do one set of A1, rest 60-90 seconds, do one set of A2, until you reach the prescribed number of sets.
D1 overhead presses 4×6
D2 weighted abs 4×25
In any event, enjoy the holidays!
