#96: My Best Tips for Staying on Track During the Holidays

The holiday season is here, and with it comes the parties, festive meals, and all those tempting treats! 🎄 

But how do you enjoy the holidays without feeling like all your hard-earned fitness progress is going out the window?

In this episode of 40+ Fitness for Women, I share:

• How to balance indulgence with consistency during the holidays
• Practical tips for eating at parties, handling buffets, and staying on track
• Why it’s okay to adjust your workouts—and how to plan realistically
• The key habits that make it easier to stay in control without feeling deprived

This episode is all about finding that happy medium so you can enjoy the season without starting over come January.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Listen to Episode 89 to learn more about using a calorie budget

Transcript

#96: My Best Tips for Staying on Track During the Holidays

[00:00:00] Welcome to 40+ Fitness for Women. I'm Lynn Sederlöf-Airisto, your host, and I'm a certified menopause fitness coach helping women in midlife to build the bodies that they want to spend the rest of their lives in. And as it is the holiday season today, we are going to talk about how to manage the holiday season so that you don't feel like come January 3rd, you are back to where you started back to square one with all the progress that you've made out the door.

So the holiday season is crazy. And in the U S it starts with Thanksgiving for us here in Europe. It maybe starts a little bit later, but it's like. The pre Christmas party season is in full swing. And you notice that if you go out on the weekends, like I do, [00:01:00] and restaurants are packed, the clubs are filling up early, all the things.

And for me personally, I have quite a few events, even though I no longer work for a big corporation back then, you know, there were the Christmas parties and Christmas weeks and end of the year planning sessions and all those, you know, where you were eating and drinking and whatever all day. But even me, I have a black tie event this week, which includes a buffet next week.

I have a lady's Christmas dinner. I have another Christmas party and then even a, um, gingerbread cookie baking party. So you can imagine there's going to be a little bit of eating of treats there. Plus I'm hosting Christmas this year. Which means that I'm going to have all the goodies here at home and even less time to do my normal stuff [00:02:00] because of course work continues as usual and it goes all the way through to New Year's, New Year's parties.

So. I get it. I totally get it. Last year. It was even worse for me. And I managed to get through the whole holiday season without putting on any weight and without saying no to any of the parties. And I really credit. a lifestyle change and kind of, um, a different way of looking at food and exercise as really the key ingredient here.

So I'm hoping that maybe some of the things that I've learned along the way could help you. So let's get into it.

So I'll start by saying that nowadays I really feel like life is for living. And the reason that I am doing fitness stuff is to keep this wonderful body that I have been given running smoothly [00:03:00] so that I can enjoy my life for as long as I possibly can. And my aim is to live to be into my nineties.

And this is something that has evolved over time, because there was a time when I felt so strongly about training, and this was in my twenties, that I would skip going out with my friends. They're like, Oh, no, no. Mm. It's my day to go work out. I am not going to go out with you guys. Sorry. Maybe next time.

And I know that there are a lot of women who still are kind of in that mode. It's like I have to do everything perfectly all the time. I have been in that mindset. So I do get that. And if you are one of those people, I encourage you to try to expand a little bit outside of that. So that you don't miss out on the wonderful things in life.

And that applies not only to training, but also to food, [00:04:00] because even though you are, if you are somebody who is very strict about what you eat during the week, you know, during normal life, Christmas goodies might be things that you really, really love. And it's awful if you have to go through the holidays feeling like you're just depriving yourself of everything. So some kind of happy medium. 

Now, on the other extreme are the people who feel like, okay, it's December. I'm just gonna let go and I'll worry about it again in January. And the fact is that in the U. S., people really gain, what is it? An average of six pounds over the holiday season. So that is maybe not. a great strategy either to just let it all loose, eat as much as you want, go to town, you know, skip all your [00:05:00] exercise and, uh, and then fix it again in January.

So I guess what I'm trying to advocate is that instead of not enjoying the holidays or going completely overboard, we do some kind of happy medium. I hear way too much about people starting cleanses and fasts and crazy exercise schedules starting in January. Of course, the gyms love that people signing up in January, but then people go in there and they kill themselves. They get injured. And then they're out of there just as fast as they arrived. I mean, for those of us who have been going to the gym for a long time, you've seen that. That oh January comes and all the classes are filled. All the lockers and locker rooms are filled. The parking lot's filled come February. It's back to normal. It's because of all those folks who try to start something that isn't realistic for them. But anyway, we'll get back to that in January. 

 [00:06:00] Okay, so if we first look at training, so on a normal perfect week, i. e. I don't have a lot of things in the evenings, probably don't have the kids. So I don't need to be cooking as much or driving as much. I will train four days a week at the gym. Then I'll do one kind of yoga Pilates type of class to get some stretching and to get some different kind of mobility. And then I'll do a sprint interval training or one of my really, really fun dance classes that I enjoy. So that's normal, like six workouts in a week. And you may be wondering like, wait a minute, but she talks about having two days off. Yes, I talk about having two days off. So I usually double up. So I'll do an upper body session and then do the sprint interval training, which is really, it's usually in, um, in. The, uh, spinning class. So it's using my legs or really the body balance. So this Pilates yoga class, it's not super [00:07:00] hardcore.

So I can do that after weight training. And it actually feels really good because my body's warmed up from the weight training. And then I get to do some mobility and core work. So it works very nicely in combination. So then I do, I do get my two. are actually three days off altogether that I don't train at all.

I just walk and eat and sleep. Okay, so that's my normal week looks like. So what's it going to look like now in December? Well, it's really going to depend. I always on Sundays, I look at the week ahead and I plan out my training sessions. So if it is looking super busy, And I'm feeling stressed, crunched for time, like a Christmas shopping, all those things.

Then twice a week weight training is kind of the bare minimum that I will do. And there will be two full body sessions. And then if I can do more than that, that's icing on the [00:08:00] cake. I might even pencil in something where I'm like, okay, I would like to do one more session. Or I would like to do one sprint interval training session, and put in there that, Hey, this is something I will drop if I need to drop it out of there, but I will keep, I'll keep the weight training and. And that's fine, you know, because I know that I will get the other things back in in January. I don't want to completely be like, okay, I'm not going to do anything. I'll do what I can without stressing myself out too much. So that's as far as the training goes. Oh, and I will mention that. I will still do my 8000 plus steps a day.

I have my walk pad and I'm working every day, so I'm here and walking on my walk pad. It's not really walking, it's kind of meandering on my walk pad as I work, but the point is not to be completely [00:09:00] sedentary. Okay. And the other thing that I will prioritize and it doesn't have to do with the training or eating is sleep.

I want to get in my sleep because I know that I'm going to be a disaster if I can't get my sleep. So, for example, last night got to bed a little bit late because I had some Issues with my website. I was doing tech support for myself until like 1130. So I set my alarm for 8am. So I would get in my eight hours of sleep and I slept in and now I feel energized and all that.

So that's super important. Remember your sleep. And I know when I've been out in these holiday parties. The quality of sleep is not going to be so great. So I am going to make sure that I'm not planning something for the following morning. If I can avoid it, I will try to make the time to be able to sleep or at least not for the next night so that I can catch up on my sleep. Right? [00:10:00] Sleep is critical.

All right. So what about? food. Now, last year I told a story about some women in my gym. We were waiting for a dance class and they were talking about, Oh yeah, I just got in another 20 minutes on the treadmill. And, and now I burned another 150 calories. And I was like, what are you guys talking about? And they said, Oh yeah, well, we're burning calories so that we can eat Christmas dinner. And literally my jaw dropped. I thought, these are super intelligent women. I know for a fact, like lawyers and these kind of professions, not at all idiots. But thinking like this still, it just goes to show how prevalent this kind of thinking is.

We have been raised on, you know, you eat a muffin, you go for a run, you need to lose little weight, you go for a run. [00:11:00] And it actually used to work when we were younger. But so let's talk about the food. 

So for me, I love holiday food. And I want to be able to enjoy the holiday food. That doesn't mean that I want to go to town, uh, and just stuff myself.

So I want to think about the Japanese, ideology, which is to eat until you're 80 percent full, but not until you're stuffed, right? And eat slowly because your brain really takes time to catch up. So if you're in a restaurant, eat a little bit, chat a little bit put down your fork - I mean these are, these are basic kind of stupid sounding things, but they really, really do help.

And whenever I am eating in a restaurant or a buffet or whatever, I go through and I look at the menu or the whole buffet and I try to choose [00:12:00] proteins. You know, that's what I base my plate around, just like I would at home. So, I mean, Thanksgiving is great because you've got turkey, and a lot of people have turkey for Christmas as well.

Our tradition is to have ham and to have salmon, and both of those have a lot more fat in the protein, but Those are the things that I'm going to do as my core things in my meal and what the protein does is it fills you up more and I'll start with that. So my trick when I go to a restaurant or, you know, buffet is I will choose some kind of meal which has protein.

Protein, like meat protein, so many veggie options nowadays, but not so many that have like even the vegetarian protein in them. So I will choose protein rich food. Then when you get the plate of food, then start by eating the protein. That's [00:13:00] what I do. Start by eating the protein and then eat the next thing that I like, right?

Because my my old habit was. And I grew up doing this was I would save the thing that I liked the most till the end. And what that did was that I would be already full by the time I was getting towards the end of whatever I was eating. And I would still kind of stuff myself with the final bites because it was my favorite thing there.

Well, imagine how much easier it is not to stuff yourself if you start by eating the protein plus the thing that you like the most. So let's say you have a salad that has strawberries on it, right, and salmon or whatever, turkey. So you eat the turkey. Or the salmon, the protein source, plus the strawberries.

Then you get your next thing that you love. I love olives. I love cucumbers, these kinds of things. And I eat them. Then by the time you're starting [00:14:00] to feel full, you're like down to stuff that you don't really love. For me, that's like. Cauliflower. I don't really like nuts in my food. So those are things I don't eat very quickly. So then you don't overstuff yourself or the temptation to is much, much smaller because all that you have left on your plate is things you don't care about as much. So try that.

Now, what about dessert? Yes, I do eat dessert, but with a caveat, only if I really like the dessert, I won't order a dessert at a restaurant just because it's got to be something that I really like. I, there, I do think, is this worth the calories? Do I enjoy this enough to make it worth the calories? And in some restaurants, yes, and in some restaurants, no.

And another thing that can be useful is if you can look around and [00:15:00] see how big is the serving of whatever the dessert is. If it's huge, then maybe share it with somebody, right? So you don't just kind of stuff yourself because you feel like, oh, I should be finishing what's on my plate. I know it's really hard to not eat the whole dessert when it's sitting in front of you,

and alcohol, I know alcohol is poison and in all quantities. bad, there's no such thing as a healthy dose of alcohol. It's just not good for you. But I do enjoy drinking alcohol and I do drink alcohol. But what I try to do is to choose alcoholic beverages that have maybe a few less calories. So, gin and tonics are one of my favorites.

If I'm making them at home, I use a lower calorie tonic. Yeah, maybe doesn't taste quite as good. So, there's another thing where if you're a total, like, flavor fanatic. then yes, you might want to spend your calories on that. For me, [00:16:00] I'm fine with a gin and tonic that doesn't taste quite as amazing as it would if it was the high calorie with sugar tonic that you can buy. Put a little lemon in there and I barely notice the difference, but those are my taste buds.

Okay. So that was some tips about the eating. Now, what about when you're at a party? So these are some, and these are again, like, these are not hard things, but I've noticed they really do help okay. First, I don't go to a party starving because you know what happens in parties. They have those little snack platters, right?

They'll have nuts, cheese and crackers, chips, those kinds of things that are delicious. And if you. And you know, like the old Pringles commercial, you can't just eat one, right? I am, I am that person. If I can avoid touching the chips, like taking that first one, I won't eat them the whole night and I won't even want them, but I cannot have just [00:17:00] one.

It's like not humanly possible for me. So I try to eat something before I go, something that has high protein. So it'll hold me over. For a little bit longer, not a huge amount. I don't want to go there like stuffed or especially if I know that there is some food, but I want to not be like, Oh my God, I need to eat something. My blood sugar is going down, you know, and walk in and start eating whatever the snacks are that they have out.

So my favorite go to pre party snack is something like cottage cheese with tomatoes and a piece of bread with some spread on it. You know, that's pretty normal for me. That's my normal afternoon snack and pre party snack.

And then there's some kind of basic, easy things that don't sit near the snacks, right? Because if they're sitting in front of you, you are gonna wanna eat them. So I will strategically go [00:18:00] to the other end of the table. Or if they're right in front of me, I will kindly offer them to the people at the other end of the table so that it's a little bit further away from me.

 If there are veggies, I mean, Hey, carrot sticks, celery sticks, those kinds of things, you know, eat those to your heart's content. But the dip is going to be the challenge there, but I don't really like the dips. So just the veggie plain works for me.

And if the party has things like dancing or some kind of activity that you can do, do that. I mean, think of it like, I mean, dancing is. fun. And even if I don't really like the music, I'll go and dance anyway, because I just figure, Hey, it's moving my body, which is always good, you know, and especially that kind of different movement than what you do normally, like in the gym or at home. And it's getting in more steps. Right? And it's fun and you can't really drink so much while you're dancing. [00:19:00] So there are all kinds of benefits to dancing or doing some, whatever the activity is that's available at the party.

And a final tip that I'll say is that if you are somebody who is watching your calories and on a diet then I very much encourage you to use a calorie budget. I talk about this in episode 89 of the podcast. So that was like a month ago. Basically, in a nutshell, what that is, is that instead of thinking of your calorie limit as a daily limit, think of it as a weekly budget, which means that if you know that you're going out to a party on Saturday night or Friday night, then What you would do is you would save up for Friday and Saturday night so you eat a little bit less on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and Sunday plan to eat a little bit less [00:20:00] than the full amount of calories that you could eat so that you've saved some of it for the party night,

 The same way as if you had a monetary budget for your meals over the course of a week, and you knew that you were going to spend more money on the weekend, then you would need to spend less money on the Monday through Thursday, right? Because otherwise you run out of money. So think of your calories as a budget that you need to just plan how you're going to spend it.

Okay. So like promise, these are not anything very complicated or difficult to do. 

But all those tips said, I have to say that I think the biggest difference has been the changes in my lifestyle that I've made over the past, oh my God, I think it's Almost three years now. And in particular, the weight training and the fact that I've [00:21:00] put on so much more muscle and lost fat because muscle does burn more calories just sitting around the house.

So I am able to be freer with my eating, but at the same time, I've also learned to be very intentional with what I eat without feeling like, Oh my God, I got to track everything. And Oh my God, I can't. Eat this or that or the other.

 It's the combination of having more muscle, being consistent with my weight training and with moving because your daily movement is also really important for the amount of calories that you burn in a day, getting enough sleep because that is important for your hunger and satiety hormones not going out of whack. So you know, when you're actually hungry, right? And when you're actually full, instead of those signaling mechanisms, not working properly for you.

So I think those [00:22:00] three things are really the pillars of why this has been much easier for me. So if you're thinking ahead, To your goals or new year's resolutions, and you haven't started weight training yet. I would really, really recommend that. And if you are weight training and you're not doing your steps yet, start working on that.

And Hey, if your sleep isn't under control, then that is absolutely the number one thing that I would focus on and then get started with those other things. As soon as you got your sleep under control. All right.

So to summarize this holiday season, balance the enjoyment and the consistency, right? Let's not throw all of our fitness habits out the window and figure, Oh, we'll start again in January. But at the same time, let's not hold onto them so tight that we can't enjoy the holiday season.

Hit some kind of happy medium. And for me, what that looks like is that I have a [00:23:00] plan when I go into parties or going out for, you know, Christmas or holiday meals about how I'm going to eat and how I'm gonna avoid just eating empty calories that I don't enjoy that much anyway, , right? And also that I'm going to cut myself some slack. And if I don't have time to train as often as I normally do, that's fine. But I'm going to do what I can without stressing myself out. And then when the holiday season is over, I'm just going to get back to my normal habits.

And I'm not going to go on any juice cleanses. I'm not going to fast. I'm not going to start going and doing cardio 10 times a week. You know, I'm not going to go crazy and overboard. If I happen to gain a pound over the holiday season or two, I am going to trust the process that I have been following for the past two [00:24:00] years, that it will get me back to where I want to be and to where I am now, which is where I'm happy with my body.

Okay. So I hope this was helpful just to hear. What I'm doing this holiday season and might have given you at least one idea of how you might be able to manage it a little bit better and also to give you permission to cut back a little bit on your workouts if those are going to stress you out and stop you from enjoying all the things that The holidays have to offer.

And at the same time, if you were thinking about just, Hey, screw it, I'll pick up again in January. I hope this encourages you to anyway, keep at it a little bit, you know, just tone it down, but don't throw it out altogether. I think you'll be happier in January when you haven't just abandoned everything you've worked so hard for.

And with [00:25:00] that, I leave you until next week and wish you happy training.