Time for Exercise

Gaining weight is sooo easy over the holidays. Or so everyone says. And in a lot of ways that’s true.

There are a lot of food temptations around at this time of year. It starts with Halloween candy, moves on to the Thanksgiving feast, then you’re slammed with Christmas parties, family holiday gatherings, feasts and of course New Year’s parties.

Is it any wonder a lot of people consider weight gain at this time of year to be inevitable?

I have absolutely no problem with saying “just for today, I’ll indulge”… provided that you mean it. But if you say that day after day you will end up sabotaging your efforts.

Honesty with yourself is essential at this time of year. You have to know what you are doing to your efforts to live a healthier lifestyle. If you think it is acceptable to gain weight right now you need to be okay with the results when you see them on the scale. Fooling yourself is not a good plan.

Eating healthy when you have no say in the menu is one of the greatest challenges. But if it’s an event you go to year after year, you probably have a pretty good feel for what will be served. If you know that healthy foods are not likely to be featured, eat enough that you can limit your portions better at the event. But if healthy foods are there, plan to eat more of them and be more moderate with the more indulgent options.

If you’re fine with gaining weight over the holidays, just say so! Be ready for what it will do for how long it takes you to reach your fitness goals, however. But if you can’t stand the thought of having your goals further away at the start of the new year, be honest with yourself and don’t let temptation control your eating no matter the time of year.

Keeping hydrated is very important when working out. But buying plastic bottle after plastic bottle of water isn’t exactly environmentally friendly. Besides, there are some really great looking bottles you can buy that are quite convenient when you’re working out.

ReusableBags.com has a great selection of water bottles. The SIGG bottles are perhaps the most beautiful, but there are styles to suit just about any taste.

The other advantage that many reusable bottles have is that they do not leach toxins. They’re actually better for you. Not many people currently worry about whether or not harmful toxins leak from plastic bottles, but some feel we ought to. If you have a bottle that doesn’t do that anyhow, no worry about which side is right.

The SIGG bottles and other reusable water bottles can also of course be found at Amazon if you prefer. These make great gifts for the person working on keeping fit in your life.

Like most parents, I feel like my kids have far too many toys. It’s a very normal reaction, I think. Kids get toys from so many sources, and often have more than they can reasonably play with.

But I have one rule I tell people when they ask me. If it’s a toy that encourages activity, creativity or is educational, go ahead and get it. Hard to get too much of quality toys in that area.

There are a few toys that I think are really great to give to children to encourage them to be more active. Some are more for indoors (great for winter if they don’t want to go outside) while others are for playing outside.

The Fisher-Price Smart Cycle is one example. A lot of people laugh at the idea, since it is far better to encourage kids to be active outside than in playing video games, but if you’re getting a toddler a video game system, better to get one that encourages activity.

For older kids, the Wii is a decent choice. Just get some of the more physically active games to encourage the kids to get up off the couch when they play. Alternatively, Dance Revolution is popular, and you can get the dance pad for a variety of gaming systems.

NERF makes a lot of really great active toys. The big one this year is the Nerf N-Strike Disk Shot, but they have a wide range of toys that encourage kids to run all around and play. Some are good for indoors but many really do best outside.

For outdoor toys, in addition the the usual bicycles, inline skates and skateboards, consider the Ripstik Caster Board. It’s a cool twist on the usual skateboard and looks to be a lot of fun. People describe it as a cross between a skateboard and a snowboard, and the reviews on it have been excellent.

If your kids don’t have a lot of toys that encourage them to go outside, now is a great time to start changing that. If the weather is such that they don’t want to spend a lot of time outside, find variations that allow them to play more actively inside. Many of them will utterly delight the recipient.

Being too busy to work out is one of the most common reasons why people don’t exercise. Just about everyone uses it at some point. But even if you don’t have the time to break for even 15 minutes to take a walk you can sneak in a little bit of exercise.

Think about times you just stand around… brushing your teeth, cooking, that sort of thing. Leg lifts or walking in place can get you moving just a little bit more. It’s not a lot of exercise but it is something.

Put a little more effort into housecleaning. This in itself is fair exercise. Do a bit more of it and work harder at it.

Work out whenever you watch television. It may be a leisure activity, but it doesn’t have to be so sedentary. I like using a Gazelle while watching television, doing crunches, leg lifts, whatever. An exercise ball can be nice too. Fitness balls are also nice. The exercise shouldn’t be anything that makes it too hard to watch your show, or you probably won’t keep up with it. Then again, there are always commercials!

Working out at the computer is harder. This is one of the hardest areas to work out, and it may not be possible to do much about that. You can move your legs, but generally not much and not terribly effectively.

When you shop, park further out. The added walk really won’t be all that bad, and it’s generally much easier to find a spot.

Stealth exercise isn’t generally enough to get you fit, but it’s better than not trying at all.