Get Healthy During the Holidays
What better time to get healthy and start healthy lifestyle habits than the holidays? What? Are you kidding me? No, I am not. The holidays can be a great time to turn your health around and get healthy. Many people have time off during the holidays and that means more time to exercise and to be physically active in general. It’s a great time to try new healthy foods, experiment with new recipes, and acquire new tastes in foods.
The holidays are a great time to reconnect with people including family, friends, and co-workers, and meet new people. Social interaction is vital to good health and it promotes longevity. The holidays are a time to think of others and to give our time, energy, and money to make a difference, all of which have positive effects on our mental health.
New Year is usually a time when motivation to make changes to our health is running high. Take advantage of it. Do not squander that opportunity.
Do not use the holidays as an excuse to engage in unhealthy practices.
Game Plan and Goals
Get healthy. Develop a game plan. Then work on your plan. Write down your health goals. Think of goals in terms of daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals, and goals to achieve by the end of the following year. Read our article on goal setting.
In those goals include your targets for body weight, strength, aerobic fitness, cholesterol, blood sugar control, and anything else health-wise that you can control that will enable you to get healthy. Be as specific as possible. How much weight do you want to lose and by what date?
How Fast to Make Health Changes
How fast should you make changes to your health specifically as it relates to exercise and nutrition? The answer to that depends somewhat on the individual. Some people do better if they dive in head first right from the start. Others do better by making slow incremental changes.
Here is our view and it is not based on any science but simply our opinion. We recommend making dietary changes quickly and exercise changes more slowly.
When it comes to exercise, start slow and advance the program every week. Listen to your body in the process. It may take a day or two after a workout to see how well your body is responding. The body needs time to adapt to exercise and to keep improving you must regularly change up your exercise routine.
When it comes to diet, make changes more abruptly. Do not slowly reduce your soft drink or candy consumption. Stop consumption of those foods completely allowing for some occasional indulgence. Same thing with fat intake. Sometimes giving yourself one cheat day a week where you can consume your comfort foods makes it easier to make eating healthier the remaining 6 days a week easier.
Use the holidays as an opportunity to make changes and get healthy.
