Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Just say NO to holiday weight gain!

Let's face it. The holiday season is upon us once again, and it can be one of the toughest times of year to even MAINTAIN your weight, much less lose anything. It starts with Halloween candy, cruises right on through pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, cookie swaps at Christmas, and booze galore at New Year's....never mind Super Bowl parties.

This article gives some good advice on how to get through the feeding frenzy. It's mostly about awareness, stress management, and PLANNING. I don't remember where I heard this saying first, but it comes in handy a lot for me these days: "If you fail to plan, then you're planning to fail."

What about exercise? Surveys show that an alarmingly large majority of Americans don't do much for themselves in this department. Most say a lack of time is their main excuse, and that only gets worse during the holidays. Depending on which area of the country you live in, the weather may also increase the urge to stay inside and hibernate. HOGWASH, I SAY! There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad choice of clothing!

If you need something new, fun, and challenging to spark your interest in exercise this time of year, I have an answer for you. Behold...the 2011 Battle of the Bulge Challenge. That's a link to a Facebook event page that I created, based on the challenge originally dreamed up by a Park Ranger at Yosemite. The challenge starts TODAY, November 1st, and runs through midnight on New Year's Eve. You have to complete 50 miles of running and 1000 reps of each of these exercises: lunges, squats, pushups, and situps. Break it up however you want over that 61 day period, but GET MOVING.

The running part should be pretty easy for me, as I'm already working on getting ready for my next adventure in the 50 States Half Marathon Challenge. I've pretty much decided that it's going to be the Breast Cancer Half Marathon in Jacksonville Beach, FL on Feb 12, 2012, though I haven't booked anything yet. NOTE TO SELF - Keep a better eye on the calendar, because if I'd booked that race YESTERDAY, I would've saved $20 on the registration fee. Dammit. Now it's going to cost me $95. Sigh...Live and learn. The rest of the BoB Challenge is totally doable as well. If you break it down to a minimum daily requirement, it's only about 16.5 reps of each thing per day. Bump that up to 2 sets of 10 and you're there with time to spare.

So...If you're looking for some inspiration and support as you try something different to get through the holidays in a healthy way, click that link up there. If you're not on Facebook, drop a comment here and we'll figure out how to get you a copy of the challenge documents via email or something. Good luck!

1 comment:

Julie Johnson said...

I'm doing the Battle of the Bulge. Day 1. I got some of everything except running.

I'll be traveling a lot this holiday and visiting friends and family. Many will have hubby and me over for a visit, and there will be platefuls of cookies and candy. My strategy (and this has worked in the past) is not to touch it while I'm there. I may choose a couple tasty looking morsels to TAKE WITH ME when I leave. That way, if they're delicious, I'm gone, so I can't snarf down five or six of them during the course of the visit.