November and December represent a time of year when people almost purposely eat unhealthy with the comforting idea that they will rectify all of their bad choices at the start of the new year.
To be clear, I’ve always been a proponent to enjoy your holidays. I hate when these OCD people with borderline food disorders go and tell everyone to maintain a strict diet on Thanksgiving or Christmas. I can’t think of worse advice since this will only develop the person to hate themselves if they do indulge in a Christmas cookie or pumpkin pie. My advice: enjoy the holiday, but keep it controlled acutely and don’t turn “holiday” into “two weeks”.
All of that being said, you might be a person that necessitates an adherence to good nutrition. If you are fat, unhealthy, or ill, then you should make it a point to eat clean, quality foods (i.e. no grains, primarily meat and vegetables, aim to improve insulin sensitivity, etc.). You do not get a reprieve just because it’s Christmas; your health is more important than anything else. It, at the very least, effects not only your enjoyment of daily activities, but your productiveness. If I’m your boss, I want you being alert, energetic, and effective instead of lethargic, ineffective, and in pain.
Nevertheless, everyone provides a mental comfort with the idea that they can dick around towards the end of the year because they’ll “get on the right track” in the beginning of the year. Bullshit. What’s so special about flipping a calendar? If something is important to you, do it right. fucking. now.
It’s one thing to reduce your training frequency on the account of spending time with family, stressing to buy presents, or prepare for a holiday tradition, but if you’re slacking on the account of laziness or the promise that you’ll do better in ten days, then sort your life out. Health should be important to you — and training probably is — so put the emphasis on those things.
I wish I would have written this a month ago, but don’t cripple yourself just because everyone else around you is weak minded. Whatever your “resolution” was going to be — reading more, starting a journal, mobbing more, eating healthier, establishing a training routine, being nicer, learning a new subject — just simply start doing it. If you have logistical limitations that’s fine, but don’t let your mind be the limitation.
This is the first year I’ve been mostly sober and cookie-free from the end of october thru december. It’s easier than I thought it would be. I hit a few PR’s last week which is always good motivation.
Yes to this. I think it’s important to set defined, emperical goals. Instead of resolving to “exercise more,” resolve to “exercise at least 3x/week for 45/52 weeks next year.” That way you can actually determine whether or not you achieved yoru goals.
I’ve lately started setting myself up to do smaller things (reading more, mobility ever day, sketching etc). I’ve noticed that when I actually mark a specific amount to do every day (say, 30 pages, or 15 minutes or something like that) I have a much higher motivation to do it, since I feel time constrained. If I just say “read today” i’ll save it until i’m about to fall asleep, read like 5 pages and call it good. Small goals leading up to a larger goal help the most.
Speaking of emperical goals, it is my goal next year to lift with the intensity (measured in decibels) of this person
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fd0_1355773174
I’m jealous of her vertical shin anthropometry.
Well said. Making resolutions for next week/month/semester/year also suck because, when people slip up, they tend to put off “getting back on the horse” till the NEXT cycle of time. Oh, had some cake? Might as well eat shit till next Monday. If you’re ready to start on important projects right away you won’t constantly sabotage yourself in the same, scaled down kind of harmful self justification that causes people to overindulge before new years/next week.
I always train more in the run up to Christmas rather than less, then tend to wind down/de-load in January. Partly this helps avoid the New Years rush on the gym that you always get.
I HATE NEW YEARS GYM RUSH!!! I got my rack, bar, and bench just in time to start lifting at home before the new year- and I love it.
This.
I want a MopeWOD shirt that has a chubby guy doing hammer curlz with the caption “Give Up Now”. I mean, the Resolutionaries are gonna give up by Feb anyway, why fuck up my Jan workouts in the process.
“Bro, you done doing upright rows in the squat rack? You just gonna leave those 15# Db’s on the platform?”
Chinga mi vida.
the worst is you basically have to camp out at your bench/squat rack/deadlift bar for fear someone is going to move it to do yoga ball 1 legged squats in your spot. ugh
Exactly! People at work never get it no matter how much I try to explain it. Every day people at work keep telling me “come on, live a little”, and that’s the problem. I want to live a lot, not a little. At this point I’ve lost 90 lbs in the last 22 months but at 225 I still have a good 30 or 40lbs of body fat to go. Let me tell you that getting lean is way more fucking important to me than any holiday, or party, or whatever else. Every day in this place it’s donuts, candy, chocolate, chips, cookies, bagel’s, and just about every other shitty food I can possibly think of.
Then the holiday’s come around and it gets even worse! We had a potluck and I couldn’t eat anything, I just sat around the table while everyone pigged out on whatever. If I was down to my “target” weight, which is arbitrary at this point but I’ll know it when I see it then it might be a different story and I’d perhaps eat differently when the opportunity presented itself but damn, I’m not.
Co-Workers: Hey Jason, you want any of this ?
Me: No I’m good.
Co-Workers: You sure? These donuts are really good!
Me: Yes I’m sure.
Co-Workers: Come on it’s Christmas
Me: No shit but that doesn’t mean I get to go back to eating like an asshole all the time, that’s what made me get to be over 300 lbs in the first fucking place. (I’m actually nicer than that but that’s what I’m thinking).
It’s downright maddening sometimes.
You said it all, man.
Honestly – office food is the worse. And it’s 365/year.
It’s just peer pressure to make you less awesome.
You guys must work where I do. My favorite is how they get on me for not eating all the treats and the monthly b-day cake, but then they bitch about how they look. Put 2 and 2 together. Plus, when I eat that shit during the day, I don’t get anything else done. I want to take a fucking nap. Why would I eat the cake and get 2 mins of enjoyment out of it, when I will feel like shit the rest of the day? No thanks. I will continue being awesome.
Keeping good food around the house and not buying garbage is easy. The 8-12 waking hours spent at work with people you hate surrounded by sugar and grain is tuff.
Start asking people if they would like a can of tuna, a spoonful of peanut butter, or whatever from your private stash every time you “indulge”. They will start leaving you the hell alone real quick. Merry Christmas!
My new years resolution is to stay strong with my shitty ass attempt of growing a beard. Any beard advice?
If it’s thin, grow it out about half an inch before you shape it up with clippers. And when you do, always trim with the grain, not against it. That way, individual hairs can be longer and cover more of your face than if they were trimmed short, but you still keep some shape to the beard.
Stay strong beard brah
Thanks dude. I’m not sure if it will even cover well though when it gets longer. I’ve gott about an inch to connect between my sideburns and chin/stache. And the inside of my sideburns is pretty sparse right now. But yet again, I’ve only been at it like 2.5 weeks, and the hair has been growing further inward daily. I guess we’ll see
Are you me?
Probably. Are u a 5’11 Caucasian female?
Hey Justin,
I know you have teased a diet post or another food log for a while but what about bringing back a weekly food feature. Recipes from members or something. We all know what we should be eating, but recipes would be awesome.
-DBlob
This has potential. I’ve been interested in how people eat for a while. I grew up as a standard issue white guy eating standard Southern food (fried chicken all day, erryday). Then I dated/married/divorced a Vietnamese girl, and I eat a good bit of VN food. It’s really good for staying lean: lots of vegetables, fish, meat, rice. No wheat, no dairy, little sugar. It’s tough to bulk on, and I have to up the meat/fish portions beyond what’s traditional to get enough protein.
It’s interesting to listen to folks that are trying to go paleo/gluten-free/casein-free for some health reason. They’re always looking for specialty products to substitute for milk, wheat, potatoes, etc., and it doesn’t seem to cross their minds that half the population of Earth doesn’t eat those things on a regular basis.
My beef curry in coconut milk should be on the recipe list.
I think tracking whats important is crucial for me in 2013.
Once I started tracking training properly, the numbers increased. Once i started tracking protein intake properly, the numbers increased. Adding to that slowly is key.
Next up is tracking sleep….
So if you eat clean most all the time, indulge for a few holiday occasions? Please say yes.
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I couldn’t agree more with this post. Christmas is usually when my whole family flies in and I plan to enjoy it and not worry about the diet for a few weeks. But part of the plan is to use the extra nutrition to blast through my lift numbers. Yesterday I was feeling froggy and went with a 30lb jump on my squat and a 15lb jump on my dead. Nailed both of them. Tried to do the same thing with OHP and a 15lb jump. Of course, I failed the last 2 sets with only 4 and 2 reps respectively. But it did hammer home the message about the smaller muscle groups needing smaller jumps.
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