Week 3 of a Plan to Break the Holiday Cycle and End 2020 Healthy and Fit

Catching up on the Jingle

If you are brand new to my blog or this Holiday posting series, welcome! This post series is the final leg in a series about breaking the Holiday Cycle of adding pounds and inches to our waist from October- January 1, and making a New Year’s resolution to essentially undo the damage. If we are not careful, this can be an annual occurrence. For more information on this topic and ideas to make your own Healthy Holiday plan, please see my previous post.

Challenges This Week

Idle time was a challenge this week. This came in the form of time off of work, unstructured time. I find that whenever I have time off, if I am not careful to plan my routine, treats tend find their way in to the daily routine. At the start of the week, I made a plan to continue my exercise routine, and did my usual meal prep as if it were a work week. I also took an inventory of some household tasks and errands that could be accomplished during my time off, to add additional structure to my days leading in to the Holidays.

Tip of the Week

Don’t forget to hydrate! Even during the winter months when it is cold, if you are exercising or clearing snow outside, you still need to hydrate. It may not seem intuitive to hydrate when it is cold outside, but you still sweat and lose fluid through breathing the same way you do during the summer. Build in hydration breaks, and also have some water after you finish your exercise or snow clean up.

Hydration is important with any nutrition plan, but especially with intermittent fasting. Your body will sometimes send signals that indicate hunger, when actually you are thirsty and just need some water. And when I say hydration, I mean pure, clean water…you can have other beverages during the day, but the majority of your fluid intake should be water. Here is a helpful previous post on Hydration.

My Strategies for Healthy Holidays

As a reminder from week 2, I made myself some specific plans and strategies to keep myself on track this week. Here they are:

• Continue nutrition and exercise plan through Wednesday.
• A slightly longer period of fasting Wednesday going into Thursday, and also Thursday going in to Friday.
• Morning Exercise Thursday, with slightly higher volume (weight training). This will be a themed workout, Ring those Bells! Featuring Barbell Deadlifts, Kettlebell Swings, and Kettlebell Push Presses.
• Exercise on Friday, cardio. This will be a themed workout, the Jingle all the Way Holiday Trot! AKA, going for a run in the cold.
• Morning exercise on Saturday (Kettlebell Swings, Push Ups). This will be a themed workout, Answer the Bell post Holiday Jingle.

Daily Journals

*A word about my daily journals and routine. The main reasons I include my daily journals in this series are as follows:

1. To show an example of what a daily journal can look like and hopefully spark some creative thinking and ideas for readers.
2. To hold myself accountable…writing down my food intake and exercise/activity on the internet is a big motivating factor for me to follow through on my goals.

My daily journals are not intended to be a prescriptive program for readers to follow, this is simply what works for me. Whether it be my exercise routine, what I eat, or when I eat…it falls under the umbrella of “this is what works for me”. If you are interested in any of my rationale behind my meal timing and planning, I would invite you to take a look at my Thanksgiving post, sub heading of “Dietary Strategies I Use”.

Sunday

Exercise: A few random sets of pull ups, push ups, dips (in between present wrapping and house chores), around 1 mile walk, stretch and foam roll.

Food and Drink

Morning: Black Coffee and water.

Around 8:30 am: Bulletproof Coffee.

During afternoon: 1 stout beer, 2 scotches.

Around 6:30 pm: Beef rib roast, mashed potatoes, roast vegetables.

Monday

Exercise: Nordic Track, 60 minutes, 3.53 miles, using “ski poles”.

Food and Drink

Morning: Black coffee, water.

Around 11 am: Black coffee.

Around 1 pm: Spicy Coleslaw Spicy coleslaw made with slaw mix, olives, chopped garlic, hot pepper, dressed with salt, pepper, avocado mayo, apple cider vinegar, sriracha sauce; pepperoni.

Around 5 pm: Ginger tea and water.

Tuesday

Exercise: Weight training. Pull up 6,7,7,6,5; Dip 7,8,9,8,7; Push up 10,9,8,8,7; Total Gym row 12,12,12,12,10; Ab wheel roll 10,10,10,10,10; Kettlebell Swing 53 lbs 12,15,15,15

For the above exercises, what I did is go through each exercise in the order listed, with very little rest in between each exercise, and then take a few minutes rest after Kettlebell swings before starting with Pull up again.

Food and Drink

Morning: Black coffee, water.

Around 9 am: Bulletproof coffee.

Around 1 pm: Spicy Coleslaw Spicy coleslaw made with slaw mix, olives, chopped garlic, hot pepper, dressed with salt, pepper, avocado mayo, apple cider vinegar, sriracha sauce; pork rinds; beef jerky stick.

Around 5 pm: Ginger tea and water.

Wednesday

Exercise: Nordic Track, 60 minutes, 3.60 miles, using “ski poles”.

Food and Drink

Morning: Black coffee, water.

Around 8 am: Black Iced coffee.

Around 9:30 am: Beef jerky stick, pork rinds, 10 olives, cheddar cheese 🧀.

Around 12:30 pm: Cold brew coffee, 2 spoons coconut oil.

Around 5:30 pm: Ginger tea.

Thursday

Exercise: “Ring the Bells!” Deadlifts-205: 3, 225: 3,3; Double Kettlebell Push Press 35s: 10, 44s: 6,7,7,7; 2 Hand Kettlebell Swing 72: 5,6,7,7,7; Hanging Leg Raise 10,10,10,10,10

*I performed the exercises in the order above after warming up on the Deadlift, taking very little rest in between exercises (a few minutes before each Deadlift set), probably about 40-45 minutes total time.

Friday

Exercise: “Jingle all the way Holiday Trot”, around 5 mile outdoor run, around an hour total time. The main challenge of this run was rain, rather than cold…it was in the 50’s and raining on Christmas Day.

*Saturday is posting day.

Included Saturday was a morning themed workout “Answer the Bell”. I needed to adjust this workout, I was a bit sore due to my run (I hadn’t run in over a month). I turned this “workout” into stretch, foam rolling, and walking.

My Weekly Progress Report

This is an update to see how I did on my goals/focus areas for the week, here is my check in for week 3:

1. Sugar, Grain, Alcohol were treats only outside Holidays. I was particularly happy that I stuck to this plan Monday- Wednesday, especially being off work and having lots of access to snacks and drinks.
2. Weight on Thursday (due to Friday travel was) 193.2 pounds, which is about half a pound lighter than last week. I’m not counting calories, but I suspect I’ve been operating at a deficit on my intermittent fasting days. That, combined with limited treats and my exercise routine are logical contributing factors to lower scale weight. Also, 5th belt loop, so waist circumference is staying steady.
3. I met my goal of three 60 minute cardio sessions this week!
4. I assured that each weight training day featured a kettlebell, and/or a barbell exercise, and added themed workouts for extra motivation!
5. I wore blue light glasses every light at least 1 hour before bed, and was able to log 2 days of 7 hours of sleep. I also grabbed a few naps during the week due to time off.

Looking Ahead to Next Week

Next week has 1 Holiday, New Years Eve! I personally do not treat New Years day like a Holiday when it comes to eat, drink, and be merry…more like a day of reflection and planning for the upcoming year. It will be important for me to dial my nutrition plan back in after the recent Holidays to close 2020 on a high note!

Next week’s post will be a wrap up/summary of the entire Holiday season from November 9- January 1. This will be an opportunity to see how accountable I stayed to my plan, and also share my top tips for Healthy Holidays. For context, I’ll give you a window into my stats from January 1, 2020, when I did not make a plan.

Thanks for following along, see you in 2021!