Getting Back On Track After the Holidays

Many people are still escaping the holiday hangover with thoughts of returning to their normal diet, their normal schedule and they’re regaining a sense of order as real life starts up again, so, in order to help you “bounce back” after the eggnog, the drinking, and your aunt’s famous pie, we are sharing a few ways to help you feel like yourself again after the holidays.

First off: can you prevent the Holiday Hangover? Sure you can. But almost everybody who celebrates the holidays ends up eating their fair share of calorie dense foods and swerving off their normal training schedule, so the question isn’t really how to completely prevent indulgence and laziness, but how to make “bouncing back” a lot easier.

If you are mindful of how you spend your holiday, you can avoid the misery of having a food baby and focus more on actually communing with family and friends. That doesn’t mean you should avoid the “bad foods” at all costs and complain that the gym isn’t open on Christmas Eve (because do you really want to be that person?), it just means that you should recognize that there’s a difference between a cheat meal and an “Oh-my-god, I-haven’t-had-my-grandma’s-mashed-potatoes-in-ten-years” kind of meal. Five meals in a row of the latter sort and most people won’t feel like themselves.

You probably don’t feel like yourself because you are reading this article, just admit it, you ate not one, not two, but three plates of food! It’s okay, so did I and I felt like four months of hard work had flown out the window. Not so. Here’s a list of things you can do to get back on track as soon as possible:

1) Drink Water. Yes, I said it, and yes I am chastising you. I know you had that cappuccino in the morning and those Mojitos at night. You need to grab a glass of water right now and chug that thing, because you probably came out of the holidays less hydrated. Think about it: caffeine is a stimulant and alcohol is a depressant, but they both have a diuretic effect. This constant energy and hydration imbalance is very taxing on the body.

2) If you didn’t miss a single training session, good for you! Keep doing what you are doing. But if you haven’t stepped foot in a gym for over two weeks it would not make any sense to try to train harder or heavier than you did before. For the first week, see if you maintained and then adjust accordingly.

3) Foam-Rolling, stretching, mobility work, these are all great tools not only for your regular training, but for those days when you know things are a bit rusty.

4) Getting enough sleep should already be high on your priority list because your muscles need sleep as much as your mind does, but oftentimes, it’s hard to do this right after a holiday because there are errands, chores, family duties, etc. Though there is a large range of what doctors believe to be the “ideal” amount of sleep, listen to your body and adjust based on your performance.

5) Relax. Nobody loses their progress, gains, or strength within the short window of a few weeks. Don’t harbor guilt about the holidays, they’re supposed to be a time of joy. If you spend too much time thinking about the past, you lose sight of your goals and cannot plan for the future.