Sample Image Hands up, who's clean eating plan has gone out the window over the past couple of days/weeks since the festive season began.  Its only been a week but if you're like me you already feel your clothes a little tighter in some areas.  A little extra wine here and there, extra meals out and treats are finally showing on the scales and your clothes. 

The mind's wandering away from the gym, can't be bothered doing your cardio, afterall it is your holiday and you can relax as much as you want right?  Wrong! well sort of.  Yes you should absolutely enjoy time off work and the great weather we've been having but you should also be keeping a reasonable healthy diet so that you don't have to do the hard slog on your cardio when you do go back to work.
One of the things you can do to help keep yourself in 'check' over the holidays is keep a food diary. Knowing that you have to write everything in a diary keeps you honest and tracks everything that you are eating and drinking. The diary is possibly a holiday spoiler for some people but it you're serious about not going overboard in the holidays then its a great idea to start one now.

The Food diary will help you by:  

Read more...

Welcome to our Guest Writer Nuria Novoa!  Nuria is a personal trainer at Eastside Barbell in Christchurch and she's also quite the dynamic mover on the fitness stage. Nuria has won the NABBA/WFF and NZIFBB Fitness classes and is also the Overall International Figure champion at the NZIFBB Nationals 10. 

Thank you Nuria for your contribution and giving me the gift of resting from writing this Christmas :)

  The festive season is perhaps the hardest time of year to stay motivated about training and nutrition goals, so Lisa and I thought it would be great to write about this and provide Gofigure readers with some tips that are helpful, yet realistic enough to follow!

left: Nuria and Lisa 
  

My philosophy for advising my clients is to help them learn about making balanced choices, rather than avoiding "bad" foods & alcohol, so here are some ideas relating to being able to enjoy yourself over the festive season - while not completely falling off the wagon! 

I thought I'd cover 5 points - how to deal with more social functions, alcohol, training through this time, being given food as gifts & frame of mind.

Functions, work do's & parties...

Most of us do more socialising around Christmas & the New Year & this almost always involves food & alcohol!  If you have several social engagements in the same week I would suggest finding a way to maintain some control while still allowing yourself to enjoy life.  For example you could chose to eat clean at every other event you attend opting for meats & green salads & avoiding desserts, breads, cheeses & pasta/potato salads with creamy dressings etc.  Or you could choose to have a little of what you feel like but keep your portion sizes small & avoid second helpings.

Alcohol!

Rather than advising people to avoid alcohol (unrealistic for many of us!) I encourage making smart choices.  There are several low carbohydrate beers available now such as Speights "traverse" or Stella Artois "Légere" which have about 3g of carbs & 80-90 calories per bottle.  If you like spirits try to mix these with diet soft drinks or soda/tonic water rather than higher carb (sugar) options such as coke or fruit juice.  Obviously drinking in moderation is also the key if you don't want it to have a big effect on your waistline!  If you are hosting a party provide some healthier options if you can.  Jugs of water with ice & citrus fruit or kaffir lime leaves is refreshing on hot days as a non alcoholic option.


 

Training

With the extra food & alcohol that goes hand in hand with this time of year it is a good ideas to keep up your training, or even to increase activity levels to help counteract some of those extra calories!  If you find yourself shorter on time, rather than missing workouts all together because the gym takes up too much time - why not try shorter & higher intensity training instead.  This could be a circuit at home using what's around you & bodyweight exercises (such as push ups, tricep dips, lunges, step ups etc), or get yourself a few basic pieces of equipment to use at home such as dynabands or a skipping rope.  You could do 30 mins or high intensity exercise 5-6 days a week rather than your usual 3-4x 1hour plus gym workouts.

When you get given food as gifts!

A group of my clients have just finished an 8week challenge - one of them asked me an interesting question the other day, if you get given chocolates as a present would it be better to just eat them on the day & get it over with or try spread them out and have less at once... my advice was why not enjoy the ones you really like & share the rest out.  For example if I was given Cadbury roses I have favourites like the mint & caramello ones but I don't actually like the marshmallow or strawberry ones so rather than eat those too just because they're there Id offer these to someone else!

Frame of mind... don't sweat the small stuff!

Something I often talk about with my clients is to try not to beat yourself up about over small slip ups or the odd missed training session. One workout less here & there or 2 biscuits you hadn't planned on eating won't undo all your hard work & progress to date, but if fall into the "oh well I've screwed up now I may as well just start again on Monday" mind set you will find it hard to get anywhere!

So to summarise this advice:

-          Try to make some balanced choices with food

-          Limit alcohol & go for lower calorie options where possible

-          Keep training, up the activity or intensity if you can!

-          Don't eat everything you're given just because it's there

-          Stay positive & don't let little slip ups get to you!

 

Nuria Novoa
13 December 10

Nuria runs value for money bootcamps for only $10 per session.
You can contact her at her website http://nurianovoafitness.com/ or on facebook here

 
Probably like me, during the week you're doing great. You eat clean, healthy food, do your exercise and stick to your routine and then the weekend comes and then everything goes out the window. You forget to eat to your regular times, drink and eat too much and then you're too tired to exercise.  Does that sound familiar?

Sample Image   
               wine, chocolate or fast food...what's your cheat?

Well don't beat yourself up too much.  Having a cheat/treat meal - and I say meal or a couple meals on one day- not a treat weekend is great for your metabolism and general wellbeing.  Here's why:

#1 reason for a treat meal is that
Exercising and trying to eat perfect everyday can make you feel sluggish in the gym. Having a high carb and high fat day at the end of the week causes leptin levels to spike. This is important because low leptin levels caused by prolonged dieting will lead to a decrease in metabolism and an increase in appetite.

#2 reason for treat meal is that you are in a better mood. Being on clean, low calorie diet constantly can make you cranky and want to gnaw your arm off! 

#3 reason for treat meal is that knowing you have one day/meal to look forward to indulge in whatever you like you will more than likely keep you on your meal plan during the week. 


If you've already got yourelf into a good eating and training routine, then all the parties leading up to christmas should be easy work for you.  As long as you plan for it that is!  If you've been invited to a few parties, give yourself only 1 party where you'll allow yourself to enjoy the event and eat/drink what you like.  At the other events, stick as good as you can to clean eating and try not to have alcohol.  There are so many calories that its not worth drinking it only trying to thrash yourself with cardio all of the following week.


Larb Gai, my favourite cheat food ever

If you're not already in a good clean eating regime and you've already been in the festive mode for a couple weeks, its still not too late to change your habit so that you can indulge in the treat meal on Christmas day.  For the next couple of weeks cut back a little on your calories during the week but not to the extent you're starving yourself, perhaps increase your activity so that you're burning more calories during the week and on the weekend give yourself a break and have one cheat meal.  Continue this for a couple of weeks and by christmas you'll be in a great routine so that your  New Year's resolution to start that New Body Challenge won't be so hard..

So as you can see, Christmas time offers some great reasons to cheat on your diet without the guilt. You exercise hard all week and disciplined with your eating, so why not enjoy yourself over the christmas period and not beat yourself up about it.

Lisa, Go Figure
6 Dec 10 


hi all, well I've too much food, not enough exercise but loved every minute of my mini getaway down to christchurch and Greymouth. Below are some happy snaps from the holiday and stories in store on Go Figure in the near future.

Matthew Gardyne, an awesome Greymouth 20 year old powerlifter who's off to represent N/z after only 8 months in the sport.

Amazing physique chick Lisa Bailey, who's packed on some nice mass and is preparing to compete at the NABBA/WFF Universe in June 2011. Wait till you see the video that I took of her while she was training.  Currently she's 74kg, need I say more!

Also caught up with rising star Steve Orton who won at 21 has already won 3 overall titles in the past 2 years.  We give you a glimpse of his muscles in action too.

So lots to do so Stay tuned!

Lisa
10 Nov 10 

Holiday Snaps!

Love the drive to the west coast    
     
     
South Isl. Bench Press Champs at Fat Max's Gym  
     
Best little gym on the coast!    Karyn Kelly and Lynette Skeats     Me and Craig McGuigan 
   

left: Mathew Gardyne's
hunky profile soon
 


     
     
Lisa Bailey and Me. More on Lisa in Wonder Woman soon  
     
Steve Orton and Me. More on Steve soon  

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