The Gift of Exercise

With the holidays in full swing, people are busy with work, shopping and social events consuming most of the daylight hours. It’s easy to let healthy behaviors, such as cooking meals at home and exercising slip out of the daily routine. However, keeping exercise in your daily routine is one of the most effective ways to manage weight and caloric intake during the holidays!
Exercise has two major benefits:
1. Burning calories to help offset the extra calories that sneak in from holiday “extras”
2. Creating a “positive domino effect”, which means when we are focused on one healthy behavior, we are more likely to do other healthy behaviors that day as well. Thus, if we exercise, we are more likely to pay attention to the food choices we are making.

If you can’t fit your usual exercise routine in every day, some activity is still better than none! You might try breaking your activity into smaller, more frequent segments, such as a shorter walk in the morning and another shorter segment at lunch. You might enlist the support of a co-worker and walk together on breaks or at lunch. If you are shopping after work, stay and walk indoors at the mall for 15 or 20 minutes.

With a little creativity and planning ahead, you can keep up the exercise through the holidays, which will help prevent weight gain now and help you move into the New Year with exercise in place for 2010! JW