How can we survive the celebration season without undoing a year’s worth of healthy living and exercise? Bevan James Eyles has some tips.

We’ve got to think about our approach to the holiday period. Unfortunately for a lot of people they think because it’s my holiday I get to drink every night, I get to eat a bit more and so on. We want to remove ourselves from this idea. I had a client who put on 10kg during the three or four weeks of the holiday period. That’s a massive cost. It took him several months to get back to fitness.

We need an attitude of this being a maintenance period with moments of excess. For most people the holiday period is not a time when we are aiming to get fit. Instead, we want to add the least cost for this period. Instead of lots of drinking, eating excessively and so on you might say that two nights a week I will have that excess but outside of that I want to stay within healthy criteria.

It’s really challenging because often on holiday we live a smorgasbord lifestyle. Eating is all over the place. We go back for seconds and go back for thirds. Think about putting a strategy in place. Make sure you are the last to fill up your plate, and then when you are finished put your plate away. This will mean you don’t get to that excessive place.

One thing we have during holidays is that we are time-rich. So if you don’t do any exercise, this is a time when you can. It doesn’t have to be crazy, just every day maybe go for a walk. You can embrace nature and your surroundings. The key thing is just get out there and move. Do that over the summer period and then see how you can keep it in place once you come back to work.

One good idea is to create a holiday fitness challenge. Runners, for example, can look at a three-level challenge. Level one is to run 20 kilometres a week, level two is 40 kilometres and level three is 60. Choose the level you want and then run that distance over seven days. Mix it up. If you choose level one, get there with a 10k run and two 5k runs. Make it work in a way that fits for you.

If your exercise routine is more gym-based, you won’t have the equipment but again you can put some kind of challenge in place. For example, say to yourself “I’m away for three weeks so over that time I’m going to try to do 2000 press-ups, 2000 burpees, 2000 squats, 2000 sit-ups.” Like the running challenge, you get a lot of freedom over when you do this so it’s still exciting. And at the end of your holiday you have maintained a base level.

What I find good is to understand the ‘why’ of your holiday. For me, it’s to unwind and recharge. During the year I am up early every morning so on holiday I sleep in every morning. That’s a real treat for me. My ‘why’ is to unwind, have some cool experiences and enjoy reconnecting. Yours will be different to mine. You just need to find it for yourself.

Christchurch fitness coach Bevan James Eyles is the author of I Will Make You Passionate About Exercise (Mary Egan Publishing).

www.bevanjameseyles.com