Christmas. Are you one of those women who panic just hearing the word? Taking care of yourself, trying to lead a healthy lifestyle, working on changing your habits… it all seems to wobble at this time of year. Are you afraid that just two weeks out of the whole year will wreck all your training of the last few months? Relax, you're in the same boat as a large percentage of women (and men).
But if you're a woman who exercises regularly, you're in luck. Yes, really. You might not realize it yet, but you'll soon find out why. Have you ever heard an athlete say something like “what sport teaches you also helps you in every other situation in daily life”? Well, now's the time to put it into practice. If you have a training routine and/or work toward specific sports goals, you've developed, without even noticing, a set of skills that will come in really handy over the holidays. It's simply a matter of applying them somewhere else. See how easy it can be:
Skill #1. Strategy
When you start exercising, you design a plan. What do you want to do or achieve? How will you do it? How long will it take?… Do the same at Christmas: set your own strategy. What commitments do you have? Where are the meals being held? What do you feel like doing over these days? What do you want to get out of them, and why? How will you go about it, and what ground rules will you set yourself? Before we're in the thick of the celebrations, give these questions some thought. By answering them, you'll already be mapping out a clear path for what you want to do instead of getting carried along by what you think you should do.
Skill #2. Planning.
Having a strategy lets you make a plan. Just like in running, once we've decided what goal we want to reach, we start thinking about the path we'll take. Good planning should cover as many details as possible, but with one caveat: the details that depend only on YOU. You need to play the lead role. If you focus on what doesn't depend 100% on you, you'll end up playing the victim, which won't do you any good, and you'll finish up exhausted and frustrated. When designing your plan, include both the holidays and the regular days. Menus. Shopping lists. Recipes…. The clearer things are, the easier they'll be to carry out.
Skill #3. Willpower
We mustn't forget about it. We often set ourselves challenges that really motivate us or that matter a lot to us, but inevitably, our mood isn't the same every day. This is where you need to summon a bit of willpower. And willpower is nothing more than COMMITMENT. Over the holidays we'll probably have leftovers at home, or sweets and desserts we don't usually have around, or maybe, out of tiredness, comfort or laziness, we won't feel like eating the vegetables we'd planned. Countless situations can tempt you to stray from your plan. But… how many times have you done workouts you didn't feel like doing? Or gone out running in the rain and cold? And how good did you feel afterwards? Now is not the time to give up!
Skill #4. Flexibility
Willpower matters, but almost as important is our ability to be flexible and adapt to circumstances. I'm sure you do this all the time with your training. For example: maybe you were planning to run first thing in the morning and something unexpected means you end up going in the late afternoon or evening. Or you had a tough session scheduled, and once you got going you realized it was better to listen to your body and take it easy. There are plenty of examples. The same thing will happen over Christmas. Lots of things don't depend directly on us and force us to adapt. For many people, this leads to ditching the plan altogether. To be more specific: some people go to a dinner or party fully determined not to eat a single thing that isn't part of the plan, and yet, once they're at the table with the food in front of them, they can't resist the temptation to nibble on something they've banned themselves from eating. After that first slip, there's no turning back: in for a penny, in for a pound. Let's avoid extremes. When we stray from the path, let's get back on it. And when we slip up, let's get back on our feet quickly and keep going with our challenges.
Skill #5. Visualization
In sports, visualization is a very important part of training and is often key to reaching your goal. When we picture ourselves in a specific situation, we're creating, on a mental level, new conditions that are already bringing us closer to the goal. It's that simple. Athletes often visualize races before running them, or matches, or jumps…. What's more, this exercise, paired with good breathing, reduces the stress or anxiety the challenge itself causes and helps us relax. Over the holidays, I suggest doing the same exercise. On the big feast days, when practically everyone dives into the food, stay in your chair and spend a few minutes just looking at the food. Picture the flavors, the textures, the smells in your mind…. When you do start eating, you'll see that your experience of the food is truly different. You'll have gone from anxiety about eating to a higher state of awareness, control and enjoyment of what you eat.
Skill #6. Enjoyment
Finally, just as running makes you happy, pushing yourself every day feeds your self-esteem and keeping your commitment to yourself is a source of satisfaction, Christmas should give you those same feelings (and more!). Exercising regularly has trained you to enjoy little details that other people “aren't able to see.” Find those big details in your family and friends, in the food and in the celebrations.
Núria Puig – Graduate in Nutrition and Dietetics