It is that time of the year again. The time for an abundance of delicious foods and endless festivities while trying to balance staying in shape during the holiday season.
It is a great time to catch up and bond with the family around the dinner table while watching football, basketball, and discussing recent family affairs.
Going into these months, you know that you will be surrounded by delicious food that your family will be nagging you to eat.
The difference is that compared to previous years, this time around you have been meticulous with tracking your food and working out. You’ve transformed your body and changed your lifestyle.
Cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents all notice that you’ve changed. They compliment your progress and the hard work required to get to where you are at. Some may even ask what you did to get to where you are.
Oh no you think. What are you going to do? How are you possibly going to stay in shape during the holidays and either continue to make progress or keep the progress that you have already made.
Starting with endless amounts of candy on Halloween.
To the Thanksgiving turkey , pie, and casseroles that leave you craving a nap on the couch from all of the carbs and tryptophan you ate.
To Christmas with ham, cookies, and desserts and the joy of presents to open.
To the New Year, drinking champagne and thinking “wait, how the hell did another year go by?”
No matter what you celebrate, luckily, the holidays only come once a year.
Because of this, the holidays should be a time for making memories, spending time with the family, and eating good food.
Enjoy it and dont be a little negative Nancy that can’t enjoy the time with family because you are on some special diet. Trust me… Don’t do that. I promise you’ll regret it.
Research shows that the holiday season is the time of the year that people tend to gain the most weight and understandably so.
With that said, if you are more conscious of how you eat and exercise, you are less likely to gain weight than those who don’t.
It all comes down to moderation. Can you be consistent while still enjoying yourself and not allowing it to go off the rails?
That is the easy route and it doesn’t have to be like that.
There can be the best of both worlds where you are able to enjoy the holidays and still make progress.
This is the guaranteed method for staying in shape during the holidays.
Is it Possible to Stay in Shape During the Holidays and Enjoy Yourself at the Same Time?
You can still make progress during the holidays and lose fat if that is your goal.
There is one thing that will prevent you from gaining fat during the holidays.
This thing is known as a calorie deficit…
Which is great news to stay in shape during the holiday season..
Because you can still enjoy your favorite treats and foods, remain in a calorie deficit, and see the results you want.
With that said, this time of the year can also be a great way to focus on maintenance rather than a calorie deficit.
This is another very good option to think about. You know you are more than likely going to be eating slightly more calories than usual during these months, so maybe switching your goals to getting stronger and building muscle may be a better bet.
Therefore, the holidays may be a great time to be more lenient with your diet, while keeping protein high, and focusing on building the most amount of muscle to help make fat loss easier and more sustainable.
Although you may not lose much weight in a slight deficit or at maintenance, you will visibly look leaner and feel better due to the muscle you put on your body and the fat that you burned off.
After it is all said and done, you won’t have to worry as much about the holiday calories, and you’ll have a stronger and leaner looking physique afterwards too.
Once the New Year rolls around, then focusing on fat loss and being in a big deficit might be more ideal.
Either way, whether you want to stay at maintenance or be in a calorie deficit, the not so secret formula to this is two things: flexibility and moderation.
Flexibility and Moderation
The research is pretty clear on this: The more flexibility you allow yourself to be, the better off you will be. Basically, do not be a restrictive asshole to yourself.
This is perfect for the holidays and staying in shape.
Remember, the holidays come once a year. A few days going off track, enjoying yourself, and going over your calories is not going to ruin your progress from the past year. Hence, moderation.
It’s important to keep that in mind.
However you want to go about this is up to you.
You may handle moderation very well by being able to limit yourself to one cookie a day.
I can tell you right now if this is you, I respect the hell out of you. One cookie for me turns into the whole box. There is no chance there will be any cookies left over once I am done with them.
Maybe you are like me and may not be able to restrict themselves to one or two cookies.
You may do better having a meal or two a week where you can enjoy a slight surplus of these foods.
It boils down to what works for you, what makes you feel the best, and what you enjoy.
No one ever got fat from overeating one day, which I am sure you are going to do on the actual Holidays.
What matters most is what you do in between the holidays. You must remain consistent.
No matter what, the most important thing is to always get right back on track.
This is why you can’t screw this up. The only way to fuck up is if you quit, which I know you won’t do.
Consistency is key – especially during the holidays.
To Stay in Shape, You Must Be Consistent
Going over your calories from enjoying yourself a few days during the holiday season is not going to make or break your progress. It will not get you out of shape.
What matters most is what you do on all of the days in between the holidays.
Just because it is the holidays does not give you the permission to say screw it and go all out with eating like the Grinch.
If this happens and you wait until the New Year to start, then you are going to have a way harder time getting to where you want to be rather than if you would have stayed 80-90% consistent during the holiday season.
(Plus you will be a few months behind than you would have been if you just started)
That is all it takes. Not 100% perfection but 80-90% consistency.
It is the perfect recipe (no pun intended on that one). Being at least 80% consistent allows you to enjoy your favorite food, make progress during the holidays, and still improve your health.
Let’s say that the holiday season is 60 days long. 80-90% consistency would be between 48-54 days of being on point with your nutrition.
That doesn’t sound so bad right?
You can do this. And you even have a few days left over if anything else comes up.
All you have to do is make sure you are in a net calorie deficit.
One way to stay more consistent is something known as calorie cycling.
Your Ultimate Holiday Nutrition Tool: Calorie Cycling
Calorie cycling may be your ultimate tool in your tool box for the holidays to stay in shape and continue to get results.
This is something I learned from my mentor and one of the greatest coaches out there in Jordan Syatt.
Calorie cycling is when you strategically have higher calorie days and lower calories days during the week that fits your lifestyle.
This way you don’t have to be a robot and eat the same amount of calories day in and day out.
Which, if that’s not your thing, can get boring real quick.
Plus it can keep your metabolism ramped up and prevent you from adjusting to lower calories.
No matter what, the amount of calories you eat stays the same at the end of the week.
Rather than focusing on your total daily calories to get into a calorie deficit, you have a week’s budget of calories and can split them up however you may like.
Adjusting Your Calories
For hypothetical sake, let’s decide that your goal is to lose fat. In order to do that, you need to be in a calorie deficit.
Maybe your goal is to get down to 160 pounds.
To do this, take your goal bodyweight x 12 (160 x 12 = 1,920 Calories)
Now, you have to find your weekly calorie budget by taking your total daily calories x 7 days (1,920 Calories x 7 days = 13,440 total calories for the week.)
Boom. Now you have your weekly budget. I will show you 3 options that you can use to split up your calories throughout the week down below that will help you stay in shape during the holiday season.
Before that, it is important to remember this is only an estimate. Not an exact amount.
If your weight goes down, you’re in a deficit.
If your weight stays the same or goes up, you’re not in a deficit and may need to lower your calories.
Important Note: Once Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s come up, you kindly say no thanks to tracking calories and enjoy your day and get right back on track the next.
Here a few options on how to reach your weekly calorie budget:
The Straight Everyday Candy and Cookie Diet:
This is your typical everyday calorie deficit.
Each day’s calories will be the same.
So, you would take your total weekly calorie budget (13,440) and divide it by 7 days to get how many calories you can eat per day.
This is for you if you feel like you live a balanced life and have self control.
Eating one cookie or a piece of chocolate a day is no big deal to you and won’t lead to an all out binge.
The Weekend Treat Diet
This is more geared heavy towards the weekend if that’s your thing to go all out on the weekends.
Well, not all out but more than usual.
Again, your calorie budget stays the same (13,440) but the thing that changes is how we divide up the calories.
During the week, you will be eating slightly lower calories.
During the weekend, you will be eating more calories so you can enjoy yourself a bit more.
This is for you if you feel like you eat more on the weekends and have a harder time controlling yourself.
For example:
Weekdays: 1620 Calories (5)
Weekends: 2,670 Calories (2)
Total: 13,440 Calories
The Every Other Day Diet
This is the last style and pretty much is up to you on how you want to split up your high and low calorie days.
If you have certain days where you know you are hungrier, like the days you work out, then those would be the days you eat more.
Typically, it goes high day, to low day, to high day, to low day.
But you can split it up however you like.
Here is an example:
M: 1,720 Calories
T: 2,186 Calories
W: 1,720 Calories
TH: 2,186 Calories
F: 1,720 Calories
Sa: 2,186 Calories
Su:1,720 Calories
That wraps up calorie cycling. In my opinion, this works really well during the holidays and helps you stay on track by giving you more of a variety of options on certain days.
Now that we have the nutrition side of things down, what about fitness? Well, that stays the same (sort of)…
Weight training
As usual, the majority of your training should come from lifting weights. Nothing changes here.
Training is not about burning calories and looks.
Training is about getting stronger, building up strong muscles, bones and joints, and setting your body up for long term sustainable fat loss.
The holidays can be a great time to focus on building muscle. Almost as a great time to lean bulk.
One thing that is a must is that protein must be kept high (.08-1 gram per pound of bodyweight) for you to build muscle and lose fat. You need it for building/retaining muscle, burning fat, and helping you keep you calories under control.
The amount of food available to you will give your body the fuel it needs.
Do not listen to those “Bro’s” online that say it’s bulking season while they eat 5,000 calories a day of garbage. This will only lead to more fat gain than muscle, making it harder for you to lose.
Plus you will get that dreaded “bulky” look that everyone talks about.
Focus on training 3-4 days per week or whatever your schedule allows.
Focus on the main compound lifts with little emphasis on isolation movements based on what you want to grow.
Lift heavy and make sure to progressive overload. This is how you will build muscle.
If you want more information on how to build muscle, I have a whole guide on it here.
Cardio During the Holidays To Stay In Shape
Whether you choose to be in a slight calorie deficit or maintenance, cardio is always important for your health. Getting your steps in is the easiest and most accessible form of cardio that you can do.
Now, if you know that you will be eating slightly more calories during the holidays, then using cardio as a temporary tool to burn some calories may be a good idea.
Noice how I said temporary. In my opinion, this is not something you want to do long term as it may cause you to resent cardio.
By using cardio as a tool to burn calories, you will offset some of the overeating you may do.
However, you won’t totally offset the amount of calories you eat because you can’t out train a bad diet. Plus, those fitness trackers are super inaccurate but that’s a different discussion for a different day.
Anyways, burning more calories may allow you to not gain any weight at all or even lose weight.
Getting your steps definitely won’t hurt either.
Here are a few tips and tricks that can help you during the holiday season and on a specific holiday.
Plan for when you are going to indulge
Ideally, you will plan for when you are going to over eat on your calories. Luckily, you have a few days already planned out for you: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years.
The best part is that these days will be planned so you didn’t mess anything up. These days are supposed to be fun days where you say screw it to your diet and enjoy yourself. They only come once a year so you better eat what you want and enjoy yourself.
The only thing that you need to do is get right back on track once the holiday is over and wait until the next planned holiday overindulgence.
That does not mean you can’t have treats in between holidays. You most definitely can.
Just make sure to stay within your calorie limit.
Fill up with protein and veggies
This is a great way to keep your hunger under control.
If you don’t want to “over do” the eating on the holidays, totally understandable.
Fill up with protein and vegetables and then pick 1-2 other treats or dishes to fill up on.
That way you get the best of both worlds of not overdoing it and still being able to enjoy some of your favorite foods.
Keep in mind your alcohol consumption
The holidays are a time to celebrate and for some,celebration usually comes alcohol.
Alcoholic beverages have calories too so keep that in mind. Alcohol contains 7 calories per 1 gram. So, a 5 oz glass of wine would contain 100 calories.
Remember, a calorie is a calorie no matter from solid food or liquid. Keep the alcohol consumption in check between holidays.
Alcohol has also been shown to increase appetite making you want to eat more.
Give Fasting a Try the Day of a Big Event
If you plan on over indulging on the Holidays, which in my opinion is fine to do since they only happen once a year, maybe fasting can help you.
Save your calories for the big meal.
By reducing your eating window, you are decreasing your chance to overeat and eat too many calories.
I’ll Leave you Off With This:
The takeaway is this: the holidays are a time for enjoyment. You want to still be conscious of what and how much you are eating but you can still fit in the holidays and treats into your diet while being in a deficit.
It is all about creating a healthy balance for you. Shoot for 60-80% whole food sources and then fill in the rest with whatever else you like.
Remember, as long as you’re at maintenance or in a deficit, you won’t gain weight. Most importantly, enjoy yourself. This is a time for more flexibility. You have the whole rest of the year to be more strict and reach your goals then.