Christ­mas is the time of year to catch up with fam­ily and friends (so less time to exer­cise). Unfor­tu­nately, temp­ta­tion is at its high­est at this time so exer­cis­ing is usu­ally left on the back burner and the weather can some­times make out­door exer­cise dif­fi­cult. Addi­tion­ally, the increased con­sump­tion of food and/or alco­hol can leave you with very lit­tle moti­va­tion to workout.

Here are some sim­ple tips to help you with exercise over the hol­i­day period:

Whilst you may not be able to stick to your nor­mal exer­cise rou­tine over the hol­i­day period, you can still fit some exer­cise in. For exam­ple, if you nor­mally walk/run out­doors but find the weather too cold, try work­ing out indoors. Walk­ing up and down a flight stairs once is equal to one minute of weight bear­ing exer­cise. Stair climbing is also excel­lent for increas­ing your bone strength (bone den­sity) in your hips; it works on the main mus­cles for walk­ing and is very good for your over­all health. While watch­ing your favourite TV pro­gramme or lis­ten­ing to your favourite radio pro­gramme march­ing on the spot or any form of danc­ing are additional choices.

You may not have an hour to spare to com­plete your reg­u­lar work­out however, short reg­u­lar bursts of activ­ity can help main­tain your fit­ness level and reduce the chance of an extended period of time going by with­out exer­cis­ing (it is always eas­ier to main­tain then to gain back).  5 min­utes walk­ing, jog­ging or march­ing on the spot on and off through­out the day all adds up and con­tributes to bet­ter health.

Lastly, it may be eas­ier to keep to an exer­cise rou­tine when you share it with some­one. Walk with a friend, walk your dog, jog along­side your child while they cycle their new bike from Santa. It’s all about stay­ing active, get­ting your MET’s and reap­ing the benefits.

Hope you find the above tips help­ful and I would like to wish you a very Merry Christ­mas and Peace­ful New Year,

Marie