Stay Fit This Holiday Season What are your plans to maintain your fitness routine this holiday season and keep those calories in balance? This hasn’t crossed your mind yet? Not to worry – an earlier post reminds us of some simple, but realistic ways to stay fit during the upcoming food- and drink-filled festivities. In a typical day 60-70% of all calories burned are for basic body needs including sleeping and awakening. Then 10% of the calories you use are for the digestion of food and 15-30% are used during physical activity.1 To maintain your current weight calories taken in must equal calories used. The good news is you have control over 15-30% of your daily calories based on increasing or decreasing your physical activity. The key during the holidays is how to work activity (calorie burning) into a busy schedule in order to counteract the extra calories you typically eat or drink during this season. Every 10 minutes of activity counts toward fitness and is important for calorie burning. You do not have to have a half hour or more to get fitness benefits from activity. It all counts and can help you stay on track with weight control and fitness goals. The following are suggestions for simple 10-minute activities. • Put on a step counter and challenge yourself to increase your steps every day • Walk the dog at a quick pace once, or even twice a day • Consider walking to do an errand at a nearby store • Take a fitness lap by walking in the mall and window shop • Toss the football or Frisbee • Do pushups against the kitchen counter and do some body squats • Follow along with an exercise program on TV • Get the basketball out and play a free-throw game and just have fun • Golfers, skip the cart rental and walk the course • Go sledding, snowshoe walking, or skiing in your winter wonderland • Ice skate at the mall, local hockey rink, or outdoors • Bicycle with any family member who gets a new bike for the holidays Share your favorite 10 minute activities with us on Facebook. Finally, consider entering the entire family in a holiday fun walk/run. Many fun runs include a 1K option as well as the 5K-15K distances. This could burn an additional 200-1500 calories depending on the distance covered, weight, fitness level, and speed of walking or running. Check out the “Calories Burned Calculator” Tool and other resources at TodayIWill to help you stay on track and maintain your weight and your fitness routine during the holidays. 1 Pi-Sunyer, F. Overnutrition and undernutrition as modifiers of metabolic processes in disease states. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Aug, 72 :533S-7S, 2000.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 12:00:01 +0000
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