First of all thank you very much for coming along to my How To Have a Guilt Free Christmas workshop today. In front of you, you have some worksheets, the first one, and I don’t really want you to skip ahead but if you have already looked it doesn’t matter, but the first one I want you to do is what’s new and good. This is just to get you in the right mind-set. To get you feeling positive, happy, I think you did it last time. It’s just to get you feeling positive in the room today so that when I talk to you shortly you are going to be in the right mind-set and be open to what I have got to talk to you about today. If you want to get started, what I want you to do is write down under what is new and good you have a list of 20 things, write down 20 things that are positive in your life right now, you are happy about, things that are good, things that you have to look forward to. Anything you like and it doesn’t have to be fitness related, just about life in general, just happy things. It can be small things like I had a lie in this morning, I did a session this morning, I have burned 500 calories earlier on. Or things like I got a parking space today, the sun is shining outside, I have brand new shoes on, I am going to the cinema tonight. Anything you are happy, positive and feeling good about right now, and all in the last 30 day perhaps.
So hopefully now you are feeling good, feeling happy, smiling, feeling positive and you are open to what I am going to talk about with you today. So we are going to be talking about how you, and we can all have guilt free Christmas which is what we want. And what I mean by guilt free Christmas is that you can have some fun, you can let your hair down, indulge a little bit but you maintain your weight, maintain your fitness and feel happy as well. You don’t feel bloated, unhappy, tired, sluggish come New Year when everyone else is like I really need to get back the gym, you will feel great and you will feel great throughout the month and into the New Year as well. So you are ready to start 2015 the best way possible. Does that sound good?
So I just have 10 points, some are quite simple and others required a little bit of effort. I want it to be really interactive for today’s workshop so asking me questions when a topic comes up you can ask what is relevant to you and anything you have always wanted to know about a certain thing and then we can help you specifically today to get the results you want to have your very own guilt free Christmas.
Number 1 – do the Santa fun run with team 168 on Sunday. 2 people in the room are already doing it. Doreen and Jo if you wanted to do it as well there is space. It’s a run or walk, 5k. The reason why I say doing that will help you have a guilt free Christmas is because 1 it is an extra bit of exercise so if you usually have Sunday off as we don’t do Sunday sessions, it’s something extra. 5k, 3 miles so you will burn a lot of calories doing that. You can walk it so if you usually walk to and from here you could do that. It’s all a bit of fun as well and the good thing about it is for the atmosphere and usually when you do a race it will kick start you and you will get a bit of a buzz, the running bug and you will want to do another one perhaps and it might give you the inspiration that perhaps next year you could run it. This year you walk it, next year you run it. It could give you that as a goal.
Number 2 – dance at the Christmas party. Whether it’s the 168 Christmas party of a different one. You burn over 200 more calories per hour when you dance at the party rather than sitting down being boring. What I am trying to get at, if you move around more whether it’s dancing or just going out for a walk, if it’s walking whilst you are on the phone rather than sitting down. Or if you are walking into town instead of getting the bus or taking the car, things like that then you are going to be burning more calories but Christmas themed, if you can dance that is something to have in the back of your mind when you are sat at the parties. You might think I don’t want to get up but actually let’s think about burning some more calories so that if you have had a little bit of indulgence with the meal then you can get up and start burning those calories off there and then. That will help with the balance which is what the guilt free Christmas is all about. You have your indulgences and you have some alcohol that you don’t usually have, or you have puddings and treats but you have to balance it out by doing some extra exercise and activity and things like that so that is one way you can do it.
Number 3 – drink sensibly. Obviously like I said some people will be having the odd alcoholic beverage and there is a list here of some of the most popular alcoholic drinks and how many calories and units of alcohol they have in them. So you have the least calorific is whiskey and lemonade (that is a single whiskey). We were saying if you were having whiskey or any kind of spirits at home you are perhaps not measuring it out as a single so perhaps you are having a double or treble so you have to be very careful with that.
PARTICIPANT – I use the cap.
How many caps though? That is a good way of doing it, if you think that is right in terms of measures. Beer you have Guinness, Stella which have 250 calories roughly for that. You are getting a bigger drink but if you are going to have that and then another one after it, it soon adds up. 4 pints is 1000 calories and that is half of your energy intake for the day in alcohol. You are going to have that as additional, you won’t have it instead. For those that drink beer you aren’t necessarily going to have that instead of a meal or two for the day, you are going to have it as well as something out. So you have to think that that is extra energy that you are taking in and it’s not what you need. It’s not useful, that’s the thing about alcohol, it’s not good quality energy either, it’s got no nutritional value really. Guinness is good for iron and things like that but you can have steak or green vegetables to increase your iron intake, you don’t have to be drinking Guinness with all the extra alcohol in it. Just think about it but moderation, do have some but now you have a rough idea of how many calories it is you can be thinking on the cross trainer if you have had a glass of wine the night before, don’t have the wine and then go straight on the cross trainer as that would be bad! But if you have had one the night before, a medium or large glass you need to be doing 250 calories on the cross trainer to balance it out. If you have had three glasses of wine you need to be on there for a bit longer.
Moving onto food now perhaps at the next party. If you go to a party where there is a buffet, it’s kind of obvious the things to avoid. Fried food, pastry, creamy dips and things like that. Bread in this case not so bad as it is low fat compared to some of the other things so sandwiches are probably your best bet, it’s just a case of not overeating them and they won’t necessarily fill you up too much. If it’s instead of having chicken wings or something like that… Instead choosing, don’t think of it as the things you can’t have, think of it as the things you can have. I have given you a list of a few things on there. Things that are lighter and healthier I guess, just more nutritious. Pastry has nothing; there is no benefit to having it, think of it like that. That is how we should be thinking of our food all the time. How does that benefit me? How does that food provide me with what I need to either repair my muscles after I have exercised, or to grow, or be healthy or fuel you for the rest of the day? Pastry does nothing for that; fried food does nothing for that. Creamy dips have nothing. They are not one of your 5 a day, they are not protein, they are just carbs and fat and there are so many better choices. When you are looking at a table of food think what is going to help me the most out of that food. Things like lean meats, salads, hummus, rice, new potatoes, that sort of thing.
Plan to exercise for at least 10 minutes every throughout this month and into the New Year as well. So we are going to do an exercise on this. Just have a look at the sheet which is under the top one. I have written out, you might have seen in Facebook we are doing the advent challenge where every day we have a new fitness challenge. I have written it out into a table there which has each of the challenges and I have elaborated on it to make it an even more fun challenge for you and my other clients. For every advent exercise that you do, which is the ones listed in there where is says advent challenge number whatever, for every one of those you do you get one point and for every 30 minute walk or online personal training video (which I will give you access to if you think you will use it over Christmas) you get 5 points. For a moderate intensity session you get 5 points, for a high intensity session coming here and doing a PT session, 1 to 1 or small group or doing a 30 minute run session you get 10 points. It just makes it a little more fun and then on the back you have an empty grid here, I can give you another copy if you like but the exercise we are going to do today is to plan out what you are going to do every day to make sure you do at least 10 minutes of exercise every day during December and into January. You have 5 weeks there and you are going to do at least 10 minutes a day and then what you can do is add up your points as you go through. We were doing this last night and filling it out and one person wrote 5 minute walking and then 3 sets of 10 squats and another 5 minute walk. Or walk up the stairs 10 times then do the squats and that is about 10 minutes. Or come and do a session here and do 10 squats when you get home. If you know when your sessions are, so Monday to Friday for the next couple of weeks, you can write them in, when it gets into Christmas so I have given suggestions. Christmas day, a 30 minutes walk or run, you could have the online video as well if you have time to do it, but you need to be thinking ahead so that when it is written out on this table here, and this sheet of paper you can literally just go it’s taken care of, I just need to do it and tick and give myself the points. There is no thought, if you get up on Christmas day and you haven’t thought about doing exercise on that day what is the likelihood of that happening. It’s the last thing you are going to think about. If you have it on here you are more likely to say shall we go out for a walk now, let’s go and burn off some of that Christmas dinner or if the sun is shining you could get out and get some fresh air once presents have been opened and things like that. Let’s do that now; let’s do that exercise.
Number 7 – here is another little tip, doing your Christmas shopping. Do it offline rather than online shopping and sitting at the computer doing it all. You actually get out the house and walk round the shops, carrying the bags, going up the escalators, walking round then you will bring a whopping 560 calories per hour which is the equivalent of 2 mince pies. So if you have eaten 2 mince pies today already or this year so far then go and do the Christmas shopping to help burn them off. We have just got a little bit lazy doing it online, I know it is quicker but why don’t we just go out there. Even if you have done your shopping already go out to the shops and have a look around but don’t buy anything, just burn some extra calories off then, just a little tip for you.
Like we have already said take a walk or run on Christmas or Boxing Day to burn off extra energy, de-stress and get away from the family for an hour if you need to, or take the family with you, it doesn’t need to be on your own. If you want to make it more inclusive and you have quite a lot of family round on the day then go with them and make it a fun activity.
Number 9 – Christmas dinner can be healthy if you are just a bit more wise about what you are choosing to eat and also just a bit careful with the portion sizes. It is Christmas day but it doesn’t mean that you have to eat loads more than you normally would. There is no need to feel uncomfortable in the afternoon, I know other people do it but there is no need. Why would you undo all of the work that you have done prior to Christmas day or in the few weeks before by pigging out on Christmas day when you don’t need to do you. Turkey is a really good source of lean protein. Try and avoid the skin and go for the breast meat as well and it is really good for you having turkey. New potatoes are a really good supply of energy to keep your energy levels up throughout the day. Try and have new potatoes instead of roast potatoes or with roast potatoes limit how many you are having and think about not too much oil in the pan, I don’t like spray oil, I would rather you used olive oil. It’s a lot of crap. I can’t remember what is has in it but it is rubbish. On Christmas day you probably do want lower calories but the rest of the year I would say have less of the good stuff. If you are going to use oil just put a little bit in it rather than loads of it. The 1 cal stuff you probably have more than they say you should have anyway as you say this is only 1 calorie. It’s just not very healthy so think about that but obviously having roast potatoes covered in goose fat, they are not good for calories and fat, so you just have to think of moderation don’t you. New potatoes will just be boiled or something like that. Vegetables just try and have lots of variety and different colours. Red cabbage perhaps, broccoli, carrots, a mixture of colours on Christmas day so do try and stock up fresh.
Finally the last exercise we are going to do is I want you to have a think about some goals. This is what will really help you over Christmas to ensure you stay on track, you keep to that programme that you have just written out, having something to focus on beyond Christmas. Up to now in the studio we have only talked about goals up until and including Christmas so if we could start to think beyond Christmas now into 2015 then that is what is going to help keep you focused. I know this first hand because last year was the first year that I hadn’t had a race to look forward to focus on my training over Christmas. So when it got to a couple of weeks where everyone was kind of taking time off, I wasn’t as busy in the business and things like that, I really lacked motivation to get out and run when it was snowy or col because I had no focus for my training. Every year before that for about 10 years I had always had a race so I had to keep training over Christmas or else when I got back to training with my group I would have been really far behind as they would have carried on and I wouldn’t have done. Having that goal really helps you to keep focused. You don’t want to come back in January for those who have prepaid or coming back, you don’t want to come here in January and be way behind everyone else do you? You don’t want to be that one who has to start again. All that hard work I have done has been wasted because I had 2 weeks off, for every week you have off it take 2 weeks to get back so if you have 2 weeks off over Christmas and New Year that is going to take you a month to get back and then you are going to be way behind.
So let’s have a think about some goals. They can be anything, health, fitness, weight loss, lifestyle. It could be getting a new job, it could be dress size, it could be anything you like. It doesn’t have to be necessarily something that we can directly do in this room here, but I am sure I could help you with any goal that you put down on that paper. I am sure that exercise and eating healthy and feeling more confident will help you to achieve any goal. Have a think, I will give you 4 minutes and then we are going to share them so I want you to commit to achieving those goals in 2015 in this room today. They can be really little as well, you could have your goal number 1 as a short term goal, like get back on track with your fitness programme. You are going to stay on track anyway but it could be that you are going to increase in the first month, you go from 3 sessions a week to 4 sessions a week in January. Your goal 2 could be something you are going to achieve in March, so a bit more medium term and then your 3rd goal could be something that you want to achieve towards the end of the year, so a longer-term goal. Like we said at the start, this time you could walk the Santa Fun Run and next year goal 3 could be to run it. You already have that focus to aim for. They need to be specific so if you are thinking weight loss you have to say exactly how much you want to weigh and by what date you want to weigh that weight. I want to run a 10k in 45 minutes. I want to be able to do it comfortably and feel amazing at the end of it and feel super fit like I used to.