Outer Edge Magazine

The silly season is full of temptations so we have come up with a plan to ensure your clothes don’t miraculously shrink over Christmas. Read on…

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even the comatose ale-charged kebab-stuffed daft party hat and fake breast-wearing bloater spread eagle in the hallway. Sound familiar? No, me neither. I’m a healthy well-respected Fitness Guru and I don’t get myself into that kind of state. Not for the past couple of Christmases anyway. 

MANAGE YOUR FESTIVE CHARGE

The yuletide festivities are upon us, which means only one thing. Actually, that’s ridiculous, of course Christmas means many things. But if you believe in Santa like me, it means that if you hang your big bicycle-shaped stocking by the hearth, next to the chimney and when you get up on Christmas morning it will be filled with all sorts of random paraphernalia like chocolate, biros, undies and socks. It’s this bizarre yet predictable ritual on Christmas morning that I love. I never getting what I asked for, instead I get a load of underwear and chocolate. And while underwear is a crap present, but there’s always a place in my stomach for chocolate, even though it does make my clothes shrink.

There’s good reason for this. It’s called Positive Energy Balance (PEB). If you’re at PEB, it means that the calories you’re putting into your body exceed the calories you’re burning up.  Strangely this does in fact shrink your clothes and sometimes if you’re at PEB for long enough over the Christmas period, the stairs in your house actually get steeper and longer and the air on the landing gets thinner. It’s the most bizarre phenomenon. The television grows too and becomes an extremely dominant force in your Christmassy life as you start to lose interest in most other things (sporty stuff in particular) and get rather frightened about going outside, especially to the places where there’s physical activity involved. 

Well I’m here to put a stop to this madness. It doesn’t have to be like this. We can turn PEB into EB, which means Energy Balance so the calories you’re putting in equal the calories you’re burning up. That way you stay roughly the same weight. I think achieving NEB (Negative Energy Balance) might be expecting too much? I suggest that attempting to lose weight over Christmas is tantamount to insanity and could mean that you are a very sad person indeed.

I realise you’re confused and scared, but I am genuinely here to help, so do please trust me, I know what I’m doing.  I shall now become serious and helpful…

BALANCE, BALANCE, BALANCE

Weight loss isn’t a sensible goal over Christmas. It simply isn’t realistic. What you should be seriously considering is damage limitation.  How can you have a fabulous Christmas with no regrets, yet still emerge from it in one piece, perhaps a little scraped and bruised, but not broken and wheezing like an old set of bagpipes.

The answer is in TORQ’s five-stage Christmas Survival Guide. Only read on if you’re serious about limiting the damage this Christmas. If you don’t take my tips seriously you’re likely to feel insulted, guilty and angry:

Ride your bike: Let’s get the obvious suggestion out of the way first. This is an adventure magazine. Obvious perhaps, but are you going to do it? I’m not talking about meeting up for a couple of rides with mates over the Christmas period, you should be riding every day. Get out of bed and straight into your cycling stuff and then get straight out the door and start riding.  Ride for an hour - no more, no less, just do it.  If you go away over Christmas take your bike with you. Your riding won’t encroach on family time either, because it’s only for an hour. The kids will have hardly finished their cornflakes and you’ll be back, sitting in a big sweaty heap next to them drinking another cuppa. Where are the hurdles? What’s stopping you? Absolutely nothing, so no excuses.

Run: If you can’t ride your bike first thing in the morning, go for a run for 30 minutes instead.  If you want to alternate between running and cycling, you can, but you MUST do either cycling or running every day. If you do go for a run, take some time out to do some stretching afterwards, because it’s so much more aggressive on the lower limbs than cycling.

Push-ups, ab crunches and lower back extensions: This is another one you can’t get out of because it’s so darn easy. Did you know that the hardest thing about exercise is thinking about whether you’re going to do it or not? That’s easily solved, because I’ve made that decision for you. Just do it – getting into a routine of doing something simple like this just before you get into bed is the easiest habit to form. Every evening before you get into bed do a set of push-ups to failure (that means until you can’t do any more). If you’re not strong enough to do full press-ups, do half press-ups where you rest on your knees instead of your toes, but you’ve still got to keep going to failure. Follow these with a set of three abdominal crunches and finish off with a set of three lower back extensions. Although you only have to do three, you have to hold these until you can’t hold it any longer. Rest for 10 seconds (you’ll need to) and then go again. Three repeats of these are enough and remember to keep breathing throughout all exercises or you’ll push your blood pressure up. This whole routine will take you about five minutes. We recommend you do this just before you go to bed every night from the moment you read this article, right through the Christmas and New Year period.

Walk: Do this as much as you can. I’m not going to be strict on this one, but if you keep going outside, the fear I mentioned earlier on will never set in. In fact you’ll love it. Avoid taking the car and walk to places instead. It all helps with the calorie burn and you get to experience the great outdoors.  f you’re lucky enough to spend Christmas in the countryside, you’ll be looking around and wishing you were on your bike, but hey, you can ride it tomorrow morning.

Active gifts: You don’t have to spend much money, but buy your kids or family member something for the outdoors. When I visited Australia in April and came back with a proper boomerang, my daughter and I have had loads of fun with it this summer. If you go to a big toyshop, you can buy similar things like a frisbee that flies for miles. These things are a lot of fun and burn loads more calories than a game of Cleudo will.

The best plans are the simplest, so if you stick to all of the above you’ll be thanking me in the New Year.

So we’ve worked on ‘Calories Out’, but what about the calories you’re putting in? Stick to the five-stage Christmas Survival Guide above, but eat and drink what you want – you’ll have earned the privilege. On the other hand, if you don’t stick to my plan, perhaps I should remind you that if you don’t exercise over Christmas you will need to avoid the following foods and drinks:

Nuts
Chocolate (including resident tin of Quality Streets/Roses)
Cake
Biscuits
Alcohol (of any kind)
Cheese
Mince Pies
Christmas Dinner
Anything vaguely Christmassy and nice

The choice is clearly yours.  Have a fantastic Christmas and New Year…

Words: Matt Hart