Christmas Survival…

As of you reading this December is two days away.

Around this time of year the fitness industry will begin to bombard you information highlighting where you go wrong and lambasting the choices you usually make over the festive period. Because their perfect remember (rolls eyes).

Whilst there certainly are ways in which you can help limit potential damage ranting on at you all simply isn’t the way I like to approach the festive season.

You see as a whole life can be pretty fucking miserable. For most people Christmas is one of the very few times that you get a little bit time away from work and you can spend time with the people who actually matter but usually take a back seat the rest of the year because of all the shit in the middle.

This is the reason I believe people should milk this time of year for every ounce of happiness they can get out of it before the January depression hits and we all go back to the grind.

So, with this In mind here’s my alternative approach to Christma fitness. This will only work with those of you who are already actively training and monitoring our nutrition and won’t work if you’ve spent the rest of the year sitting in your arse.

Firstly, there’s 52 weeks in a year. Barring holidays and other mini breaks Christmas is the only time of the year that I take my foot of the gas and encourage you to do so as well.

This leaves me with about 48 weeks of the year in which I’m pushing hard towards my goals training hard and eating right. Generally most weeks of the year will literally be sleep, train, eat and sleep again. Everything else kind of just gets fitted in around it but that is always the main focus.

I’d argue that this should be the same for anyone who takes their training and their goals seriously. As long as you don’t have a really good reason like I mentioned above then you should be on plan most of the time. This doesn’t mean eating chicken and broccoli, you all know us better than that by now. It does however mean your taking the correct steps to achieving your goals.

With all that in mind then it only seems logical that you can afford to relax a little bit at this time of year. No I’m not suggesting going balls to wall and eating yourself half to death. I just mean relaxing from your strict routine and allowing yourself to prioritise other areas of your life beyond training.

Besides the obvious effect of having a jolly good time I also find that these small breaks from training serve to re-energise me. After a week of taking it easy I’m climbing the walls ready to get back to training with fresh batteries and feeling more motivated than before. This resurgence of energy will supercharge my training and lead to increased intensity in my sessions.

Taking small breaks from training is actually beneficial especially if you want to get the most out of your sessions. Again I’m not advocating you go mental for the full month of December but in the past the amount of people I’ve seen hammer their training all throughout December making sacrifice after sacrifice only to relapse come January and end up doing more damage than they would have if they’d just relaxed about it all in the first place is mind boggling.

It’s up to you whether you take any of this advise on board but I know I’ll be enjoying my Christmas this year and my training and progress won’t be taking a hit because of it.

Dan ‘Don’t track your Christmas dinner’ Breen