Enjoy the holidays without hurting your waistline
 With the holiday season our busy schedules can make it tough to find time to stay fit, even though heavy meals and high stress make it a necessity.
Fitness experts say it’s much easier than you think to keep active, even as another cold Canadian winter sets in. In fact, your best resource may be what you already have inside your own home.
Leanne Henwood-Adam is the fitness coordinator at Humber College in Toronto and an RAB and NWS PRO trainer for Can-Fit-Pro. She says that even if you have as little as 10 minutes to spare, all it takes is a few trips up and down the stairs to get some good cardio and strength work in.
Even if you don’t have access to the gym, doing things around the house can be very effective says Henwood-Adam. For example, while catching your favourite evening TV show “do sit-ups and push-ups in the living room or use the coffee table to do tricep dips to work the back of your arms.”
Low cost equipment like a skipping rope and a few hand weights can also allow you to get a full workout without leaving your home.
She also recommends dressing for the weather and heading outdoors for a walk, “especially if there’s snow, snow is going to add a little bit of resistance to your walk.”
Joe Doiron is a senior policy advisor for the Healthy Living Unit at the Public Health Agency of Canada (link to http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/pau-uap/fitness/). He says that while winter weather poses its own unique challenges, even incorporating short bouts of physical activity during your day can be beneficial to your health over time.
He recommends skipping the elevator and taking the stairs at work, walking children to the bus stop or to school, parking a little further from the mall entrance and even joining mall-walking groups (since you’ll likely be there anyway) to get a little bit of exercise in.
He also recommends taking advantage of the winter weather in your neighbourhood or local park. “Have the snowshoes at the ready, have the sleds at the back door, take out the skates to make sure they’re sharp and ready to go, and in the case of ice hockey, which is of course a mainstay here in Canada…there’s a wonderful national program…and you can find out about that at goforgreen.ca.”
Doiron adds that if you’re just getting started with a fitness routine don’t push yourself too hard. Start slowly and build up gradually to avoid injuries and stick to your exercise program.
If you already have a fitness routine, don’t be afraid to modify it during the holidays. Henwood-Adam says that it is a social time of year, so cut yourself some slack. She applies what she calls the 80-20 rule to get the exercise in and still enjoy the time of year.
That means slacking off a little bit and enjoying some of the food of the season. So if 80 per cent of the time you’re exercising and eating properly, then it’s okay to indulge yourself 20 per cent of the time. As long as it’s only temporary, you won’t sabotage your long-term health and fitness goals.
Remember that exercise can also help make holiday stress more manageable and make you feel better. Henwood-Adam says “when you exercise you’re getting more oxygen into your system, your blood is flowing more, and you get a lot of those feel good endorphins flowing through your system…afterwards you feel much better.”
- Amanda Taccone
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