You’ve had awesome time with friends and family spending Christmas together and now just recently New Years. A few champagnes, food galore and some good times.
Now it’s time to get back into some sort of decent shape for the rest of summer. There will be a few more events coming up, places to go and people to see. You want to be looking and feeling your best.
Here are some of my best tips to get back to feeling your best after your holidays so you can get back to enjoying the rest that summer has to offer.
TIP 1: Get back into a normal routine with nutrition.
If you’ve been a bit more relaxed with your nutrition and had a few wines over the last couple of days just be aware that they will of naturally stripped your body of it’s nutrients.
Foods that are more acidic such as grains, dairy and sugar will cause your body to take nutrients from your muscles and cells to bring it’s PH level’s back into balance. Replenish these nutrients by including back into your nutrition more vegetables, greens and alkalising foods.
Aim for a serving of animal protein with greens. In the morning you can go for cup of water with pink himalayan rock salt with a dash of lemon or lime.
The reason why you might feel sluggish after a few days off your normal nutrition is due to a combination of potentially more toxins and the lack of nutrients that your body has.
- Front load healthy nutrition, always start with a healthy breakfast
- Have an alkalising drink first thing in the morning. Water, pink himalayan rock salt and lemon or lime
- Aim to have 3-4 healthy nutrient dense meals. If you’ve been having more carbs over Christmas and you’re looking bloated aim to have protein, vegetables and fats as carbs do store more water within your muscle cells
- Aim to have low GI carb meals after training or at night
- If you want your muscles to get back to looking lean and sharp instead of soft and rounded then you will need to limit them for a few days
TIP 2: Don’t stress, take it easy and allow time for your body to get back to normal.
Often when people get back from holidays they will decide to go all out in getting their body back on track. There’s nothing really that will make the body get back on rack then adequate rest, good nutrition and time.
Going too hard too soon can even backfire and lead to burnout and overeating in the future. It’s best to take it easy.
Symptoms such as bloating, more water retention, foggy brain are signs of inflammation within your body. You may of just hammered your body with a big Christmas feed and/or New Years drinks. It’s only normal for your body to react that way as it’s getting in chemicals that aren’t natural the your body.
Your immune system is working to fight off those foreign invaders. After a few days your inflammation will go back down. Be good with your nutrition, drink plenty of water and allow time for the inflammation to come back down.
TIP 3: Detox sensibly. Protein, electrolytes and fibrous vegetables are a must.
Similarly to TIP 2 you want to be smart about your detoxification. If you detox your body too fast without having the adequate nutrients to support every other function in your body and you can end up with having a big headache and low energy.
Phase 1 of detoxification starts in your liver and requires antioxidants to break down toxins into a less harmful chemical within your body. Antioxidants such as Vitamin C, B Vitamins and Folic Acid. Practically you can have phase 1 covered with green fibrous vegetables and a pharmaceutical grade multi-Vitamin.
Phase 2 of detoxication requires nutrients to turn those toxins in a water soluble form so they can then be excreted through urine or bile. Amino acids such as glutamine, glycine, taurine and cysteine. All of which you can get from animal protein.
Having the nutrients required for detoxification in slower digesting real food and throughout the day your body is working to detoxify those harmful toxins from Christmas and New Years.
Green juices and green drinks do help but remember they only support 1 role in your body’s detoxification process. Only having the nutrients to support phase 1 and that will leave you with a build up of fat soluble toxins in your liver which can then be stored away as fat as phase 2 to turn them into water soluble toxins is not being supported.
Start slow, if you’re hungover or feeling lethargic it’s most likely that you’re not going to feel hungry. Start with small servings of quality nutrition. Enough to get your body functioning and moving back in the right direction.
- Small servings of protein, vegetables and anti-inflammatory fats such as olive oil and avocados
- Green juices can also help as long as you have your protein
- Rest and recover, allow the nutrients to do it’s work
- Electrolytes will keep you hydrated. The more alcohol that you’ve had the more dehydrated that you will be
- Prepare your meals, the essentials, protein and vegetables. If you feel like having more or extra’s than you can but at least you’re having the essentials to detoxify
TIP 4: Be efficient with your training. More is not better.
Do enough to stimulate a response from your body to get your metabolism firing again. Your body is designed to be fuelled and then to be utilised. If you’ve been on holidays, had a few big nights out than your body isn’t really going to have the optimal nutrients available to support a highly intensive workout.
It will have some kind of fuel source available from the holidays so it is still important to get them moving. It may be that limiting your workout time from 45 minute to an hour back to 30 minutes is enough. Just make sure the 30 minutes that you train is quality and that you focus on maintaining strength. The more muscle you have the more energy you burn outside of the gym.
Supplement that with a brisk walk each day while you’re still on holidays and that can be enough to get your body to start utilising the nutrients that you’re giving it. 2-3 days of strength training with 1-2 days of walking and stretching can be enough to get you back on track.
Over a course of a week and your body will come back into balance.
If you want more support getting into shape after your holidays me and my trainers write up your own specific nutrition and training programs whilst tracking your progress week in, week out so you’re seeing progress.
Book in a training consultation with us today.
Gordon