Holiday Fitness Challenges

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The holidays are busy and sometimes stressful with decorating, shopping, get-togethers, dinners, and festivities, so it’s easy to understand why people have a hard time committing to their fitness and health plan every December. But, we shouldn’t take a holiday from the commitment to our health.

Instead, understand that working out is part of your lifestyle and you do it everyday because it’s good for you, even during the holiday season! You just may need to take a different approach in December or make it a game to help hold you accountable.

Gamify Your Workouts

Gamefying your workouts can provide a fun focus during the holidays, so you can launch into 2024 feeling your best.

Try Some of These Ideas:

Set a Bare Minimum

Decide you’ll workout at least X number of times in December. Create a chart and cross off each time you accomplish a workout. Watching your progress will keep you on track. You set the goal that is challenging, but realistic for you.

Track The Minutes

Decide that you will be active X minutes per day throughout the month and then keep track. For example, decide that you will reach 600 minutes of exercise in December (average 20 minutes per day) and count down your progress.

Reach the Distance

Set a mileage goal that you will strive to accomplish throughout December for walking, biking or running. You might commit to 100 miles of walking or running or 200 miles of biking. Track your progress on a graph to stay motivated.

Holiday Bingo

At NW Personal Training, we create a holiday BINGO card for our clients to help them stick with their workouts. It includes exercise and nutrition goals, stress relief initiatives, encourages them to try new things and incentivizes them to inspire someone else to fitness. You could use our card as a template to create your own bingo card with an activity or fitness challenge in each box. Everyday choose something from the Bingo card and have fun while getting fit! Do it with your family and/or friends and see who can complete their bingo card first. Adding prizes makes it even more fun.

Prioritize Plants

Instead of setting the goal to not eat any holiday treats, commit to eating at least 31 salads or veggie stirfry meals in December (one per day). With this focus, you’ll be less likely to indulge. Create a chart with 31 boxes and check off as you go.

Dry December

The thought of no alcohol over the holidays may sound terrible to some of you, but may be exactly what others need. You could set a goal of no alcohol all month or no alcohol during the week. It’s your challenge so you set the rules.

Water

You may not be ready to give up alcohol or other beverages, but if you focus on drinking more water, you’ll be less likely to indulge in other drinks. Set the goal of drinking half your body weight in ounces of water everyday. Monitor your progress on a tracker.

Deep Breathing

We all could benefit from deep breathing and meditation, especially during the holidays. Set a goal to do 1 minute each morning or evening focusing on inhaling slowly and exhaling even slower. Consider downloading the ‘Calm’ app and doing a short daily meditation throughout December

Try Free Virtual Fitness Classes

When you’re too busy and/or traveling and can’t make it to the gym, NWPT is offering Free Virtual Fitness classes throughout December. The classes will stream live on the Northwest Personal Training Facebook page everyday Monday through Saturday at 7:30am. There will be a variety of classes from Muscle Conditioning, Kickboxing, Dance, Core, Yoga and more. If you can’t participate live, you can stream the workouts on demand anytime, anywhere. No excuses! Like the Northwest Personal Training Facebook page to access all free workouts. See how many classes you can try throughout December!

Yours in health & fitness,
Sherri McMillan