YES!! During The Holidays Is Absolutely The Perfect Time To Start Your Health and Fitness Journey

Question, Have you ever said this, "Once the holidays are over I'll be ready to really start exercising and eating right." How about this one, "I can't diet during the holidays while watching my family and friends eat everything in site. It's too hard. I'll wait until after." This is one of my favorites, "I'm going to eat everything in site and enjoy myself then I will be ready to take my health and fitness seriously."

Is it fair to say that we've all said this, or at least a variation of some of these phrases? I know I have. More then 100 times, I promise you. What I've learned during my false promises to myself is that when I look back on the holidays, I've gained the most amount of weight during that time. I say to myself, if I could've started my health and fitness journey earlier, look how far I would be today.

This is why I feel that during the holidays is absolutely the perfect time to start your health and fitness journey! In fact, my gift to you is to give you 7 ways you can turn this pipe dream into a reality:

1. Keep Moving (Aerobic Exercise)- Take advantage of "Every Step You Take" (all respect to STING). Invest in a step counter where you can track your steps. Make a game out of it, or better yet make some daily step goals. We all know regardless is that when we move we burn calories. Questions about the importance of cardio click my video below where I give you 5 reasons I feel it's important, especially for those over 40 years old (Shameless Plug: Subscribe to my YouTube channel)

2. Instead of grabbing, munching, or foraging, put your food on a plate- When we do this we are more susceptible to know how much of something we're putting in our body and will be able to count are macronutrients.

3. Control Your Portions- See #2. My rule of thumb is if you're not sure, whatever you put on your plate, cut it in half.

4. If you're not a huge fan of it, don't eat it- Don't eat something just because that friend or family member said, "Hey, try this."

5. Eat a small to medium salad before you head out for a potential eating extravaganza- It will take up some space in your belly, plus it will be something that can help your body rather than hinder it.

6. Enjoy every bite of that meal-Studies have shown that eating slower (chewing 25-32 times per bite) will help you enjoy your meal and will give your brain time to receive the signal that your stomach is full.

7. Exercise- Move your body! Add some resistance training. If you're unable to do that, bodyweight movements are awesome too!

If anything these suggestions can help you jump start your health and fitness journey. I've said to my clients for over 25 years, these changes do not happen overnight, and it takes consistency to see progress, but wouldn't it be cool if you potentially could see the changes sooner rather than later.