Get your holiday plan ready!!

12/19/2011

Samantha Montpetit-Huynh is the mother of two beautiful girls and the owner of Core Expectations – Toronto’s only full service wellness team that provides personal training, abdominal rehabilitation and other support services right to your door. Serving the GTA. www.coreexpectations.com

Let’s try not to succumb to the endless parties of food, wine and endless cheer! Don’t get me wrong. I love cheer, but when it’s bottled up into 250 calories a glass and paired with 10 grams of delicious artichoke and asiago cheese fat, it’s no wonder the average person gains 5-10 pounds over the holidays. Then the gyms are all rubbing their palms together while people sign up feverishly for memberships so they can once again make a new new years resolution that’s going to “work this time”!!

It’s a vicious cycle that has to stop or be confronted at some point. While we all know how much self sabotage occurs during the holidays, it’s much easier to ignore and push it aside until the new year when we are “ready” to make changes. But what really makes January anymore special or different from any other time of the year?? Subconciously I guess it’s because if everyone else is doing it, then it’s just easier to tag along. Having said that, it’s also much easier to fall off the wagon along with everyone else too. Statistics don’t lie. The busiest time at the gyms is January when like minded people make a resolution to get healthy but not too long afterwards the gyms look all too familiar with drop out rates. By March, approximately half of the people who signed up for year long memberships have fallen off the radar but that’s ok – the gyms are still making money!

But what about you? You are back to where you started and now you are stuck paying monthly installments for a membership you are not likely going to go back to. Realistically, if you are not a gym “person”, there’s a pretty good chance you are not going to be unless something drastic happens; a health scare, an epiphany! or maybe just being fed up with making excuses.

So whatever your goal, resolution or change, do it now! Why wait? I know the holidays are coming up and it’s completely unrealistic to try and “lose weight”, but how about challenging yourself to making different choices? Try and get out for a walk (with or without baby) each morning before your day even begins. Eat at home before you go to that party so you cut down on munching when you get there. Drink water in between alcoholic drinks so you don’t get too tipsy and cut down on a ridiculous amount of empty calories.

If you can get some good habits into place before the new year is even upon us, you will have a foot in the door to making a transition to your goal even easier.

Hey, what have you got to lose? A few pinches of fat maybe???