3 Keys to Holliday Eating

The holiday season can be a very challenging time for competitive athletes. Top level athletes lead very regimented lives and often will have every meal and workout planned out. During the holidays however these routines are disrupted by the expectations of the holiday season festivities. Daily meal plans are interrupted with turkey dinners and stuffing followed by pumpkin pie and whip cream. Also, gym facilities close down and interrupt an athlete’s training routine.

It takes experience to know how to survive these pressures without completely blowing your diet or throwing your training off so much that you would need 3 weeks to get back to where you were. Here are some handy rules of thumb to follow during the holiday season to help you resume your training right where you left off.

1. Plan your workouts. If it is at all possible, a lay off from training should be planned for this time of year. Sometimes however this is not possible due to the fact that the holidays run right into the middle of a block of training. If this is the case and you need to train during the holidays, you need to plan all training sessions around the days that you know you will be attending functions. Find out the days when your training facilities are closed. Many facilities remain open Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve but are only open for part of the day. You must be aware of your own facilities holiday hours. You may need to push workouts ahead or back to get all your workouts in. If at all possible, do not train 3 days in a row. This could lead to overtraining and injury. As a last resort, you could omit workouts. Legs always seem to be the most forgiving body part with an extra week of rest. There have been times when I have trained legs once every two weeks and still had considerable success developing the area. In fact when trying to balance out a physique that is leg dominant, I will tell clients to train legs once every two weeks. This devotes greater recovery resources to lagging muscle groups. The legs still experience growth but the growth is slower than if they were trained weekly. As a last resort and if the athlete has limited time to train over the holidays, an arm workout could be omitted and biceps could be trained on back day and triceps trained on chest day.

1. Plan your eating. It would be nice if we could show up at our in-laws Christmas dinner gathering with our tupperware meal of tuna, rice, BCAA’s and fish oil tablets and say that you are on a special diet. Most families would find this to be extremely rude and disrespectful. In my experience it is unnecessary to go to such measures. Instead you are better off succumbing to the festivities and partaking in the meal. There is however certain things to look out for when faced with this situation.

• First be very strict (as you always should be) with your diet the week of the holidays when you are not attending a family dinner. This will limit the deviation from the meal plan for the entire week. It is very easy to get swept up in the holiday eating of chocolate and sweets for the entire week of the holidays. Don’t get caught up in this. Deviate only when you have to.

• The day of the holiday dinner, eat your protein and fat for all of your regular meals but omit the carbohydrate portions of these meals. This way you are still getting your protein and essential fat for cell repair however you are limiting the total caloric consumption during the day. Also, by filling up on your regular meals you will be less likely to eat 3 servings at dinner.

• Have an eye for quality food. When presented with a foreign dinner, you need to have an eye for quality food and food filled with empty calories. Meats, fish, and vegetables are always my go to foods when dining out. I usually load up on these when I have a choice in the matter. This way I am filling up on quality protein and fiberous carbs all the while looking like I am happily partaking in the feast. Avoid high-calorie foods like potatoes with butter and cheese, pastries and deserts.

1. Prepare for the next day of training. After a holiday break of eating and disrupted training, it is important to get back on track as soon as possible. Eating junk and missing workouts is addictive. You must break the cycle immediately. I generally start by drinking lots of water the night after the feast. This helps to rehydrate your cells which may be dehydrated from some alcohol consumption) and helps to remove excess sodium from large salty meals. Second, extreme care should be exercised for first workout back from the holidays. Do not try to break any records and intensity should be restrained a bit to prevent injury.