I realize that this article will be published following Thanksgiving so I wanted to take some time to comment on the upcoming holidays and how people overreact to eating and training. You know, because the smell of regret is a strong odor that resonates off many gym-goers each year.
I’ll run down the end of the year holidays before I comment on any of them. The holiday blues are a real deal to the common gym goer because instead of the holiday season being a time of giving great thanks with spending time among family, people spend time feeling bad for how they celebrated the holidays in terms of what they ate.
It seems like Halloween starts off the holiday schedule of remorse and regret. Eating candy is unheard of to those who “eat clean” and most people often make the usual “have to burn off that candy I ate” jokes following “All Hallow’s Eve.”
But the thing is, Halloween is just one of four major holidays around the end of the year that people freak out over after they are over. The rest are Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hanukkah, and New Year’s.
Here's the rundown and you might want to sit down for this:
Thanksgiving:
The day we are all supposed to look back on our lives and give thanks to what we have. The day after Thanksgiving is the day we look back at the Thanksgiving meal and go “oh crap.” Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year and the highest attendance most gyms see all year (it’s like zombie land because people are tired from shopping and working out). Turkey, stuffing, yams, the list goes on and on-- but I don’t get why people are so hard on themselves for enjoying a holiday meal. The day of and the day after could be tied for the biggest two days of regret because people usually believe that if they work out like a maniac, the calories they consumed or will consume won’t hit them so hard.
Christmas/Hanukkah:
Now, be patient with me because well you know, I’m a Jew and haven’t actually ever experienced that holiday which worships Santa but I hear it usually comes with a big meal. Again, people flutter to the gym to burn off what they believe is all the calories they consumed from their 3rd holiday cheat meal in the last two months. Hanukkah is a little different; there are meals but most include chocolate candy and lots of wine which I think would fit into Christmas very well but who am I to try to blend two cultures?
New Year’s:
The last of the holidays for the year and quite possibly the worst when it comes to your waist line. Besides the buckets of food, alcohol is consumed across the world at an alarming rate that has most hospital ER’s on standby for alcohol poisoning. We all have heard of the New Year’s resolutions about going to the gym that follow which only a handful of people actually are serious about after the month of January, however, every year, people run back to the gym the next day wanting to punish themselves after “bad behavior.”
Ok, have I covered it all? Good, now that the rundown is out of the way.
I just want to say this-- You’re all crazy.
I know I know, it’s a little judgmental but come on people, you suck the fun out of the holidays the minute they are over and yet you never learn your lesson because you do it every single year. Who cares what you eat or how much you eat around the holiday season? You can’t burn off every single calorie the day after consuming it because the body hasn’t completed digested it yet but that’s scientific and I’m here to appeal to your mental status. Eating healthy and healthy cheating should be an all year around event; training hard and eating healthy should be an everyday event so if you happen to want to enjoy your holidays, that’s fine because you work out and train hard every other day to allow that.
There’s no need to do extra reps and extra sets or spend an hour more to “ease the blow” of the holidays because you should be working hard each day rather than around the holidays. If you are doing what you are always supposed to, you won’t have a complete holiday meltdown each year. If you want to treat yourself, go ahead and do it but don’t punish yourself afterwards to where you regret your decision; it’s like planning to rob a bank and then feeling bad you have all this money and turning yourself in to the police, you completely missed the point of robbing the bank in the first place (don’t rob a bank, that’s not a good idea). Let your mind be at ease and enjoy the time of the year.
Enjoy the holidays, work hard every day whether it’s the middle of June, end of November, or the start of January. Having the holiday blues is no way to enjoy some much-needed food and family.
