Surviving Thanksgiving – 3 Stage Fitness Survival Plan

Surviving Thanksgiving – The 3 Stage Survival Plan

What is the the number one question my clients ask me this time of year? How can I not gain weight over the holidays. It’s thanks giving, I know you just wanna chill out but this workout plan can be the difference between keeping the post thanksgiving waistline bulge at bay or not. You want that extra slice of turkey or piece of pie, after this work out plan go right ahead.

There's no question that you'll likely take in a few more calories than you ideally would with your usual diet plan during this meal, even if you are making healthier choices. But, by performing a good workout session the day before, the day of and the day after, you can reduce the impacts this meal has on your overall physique.

The key to coming out of Thanksgiving without an ounce of weight gain is making sure you plan for it carefully. Your strategy for the three days surrounding the meal should be to perform a longer duration cardio session the day before thanksgiving to really boost your overall calorie burn leaning up to the meal, then perform a higher rep strength training workout the day of thanksgiving to deplete the muscle glycogen levels and provide a calorie 'sink' for the coming meal to go into, and then follow that up the day after with an interval training session that will boost the metabolic rate to help burn off any extra calories that you may have taken in.

Your Day - Before Cardio Workout

Since many of you may be traveling to family and friends for the holiday, you may not have access to your normal gym cardio equipment. Going out for a run, hike or brisk walk tops the list of choices as this is not only going to be easy equipment-wise, but it's also great for your total calorie burn. Since running does get the heart rate up higher and is one of the best forms of cardio in terms of how much energy you utilize, this makes it rank right at the top of what you could choose to do.

If running isn't an option - either because of injury or because you simply dislike it, then going for a long walk is another method that you could consider or there are tons of great hiking trails all over LA.. Get the whole family (or whomever you're sharing the holiday with) involved as walking is something that almost anyone - fit or unfit can do. 45 minutes to an hour is ideal.

Note that while doing this cardio training on this day though you are not to go replacing those calories with additional food as that would quickly defeat the purpose.

During - Full Body Resistance Workout

This strength training workout utilizing higher rep training with shorter rest periods. This is going to help to deplete the muscle glycogen in the muscle so that when you do eat your Thanksgiving meal, you can intake a higher level of carbs without having them spill over into the body fat stores.This will be a full body head to toe workout to maximize the calorie burn during the workout as well as after.

Perform one set of all the exercises in order moving from one exercise to the next as fast as you can doing as many reps as possible within one minute. After one round of the circuit has been completed, take a 2-4 minute rest break and then repeat one more time through to finish off, if your feeling really crazy you could go for a third round.

This workout should only take approximately 30 -45 minutes to complete so it's easy for you to sneak away and do at some point throughout the day. For this workout you will need a set of medium / lightweight dumbells or resistance bands. Start with a 5 minute warm up to wake up and prepare your body for the work to come.

Exercise 1. Dumbell Squat, 2. Push Ups, 3. Dumbell Lunge, 4. Bent Over Dumbell Row, 5. Resistance Band Leg Extension, 6. Dumbell Shoulder Press, 7. Dumbbell bicep Curl. 8. Dips.

Finish with a full body stretching routing holding each stretch statically for 20-30 seconds each.

After - The High Intensity Interval Session

Finally, to finish off the workout plan for the Thanksgiving holiday you have the day after interval training session. Since you can't work weight weights again this second day since we did your full-body workout the day before, interval training is the best option to help increase your metabolic rate so you can maximize your calorie burn.

For this interval HIIT workout you'll focus on slightly longer interval periods of 45-60 seconds and then couple this with a 90-120 second rest period. Repeat the work to rest intervals 10 times total, meaning that your workout should last somewhere between twenty to thirty minutes.

Also be sure that you start it off with a 5-minute warm-up and cool-down to prevent injury and reduce the chances of post-workout muscle soreness/stiffness.

You can perform these intervals however you would like - if you're back at your regular gym doing them on the treadmill may be your best bet or even better, do them outside to make transitioning between the sprint and rest intervals that much easier. Again, if you aren't a fan of running and are back at your usual workout facilities, then you can select any other piece of equipment that you typically do your cardio on instead. Alternatively you could use the Tabata protocol see Tabata workouts

That’s it, the 3 stage survival plan, have a great holiday and hopefully come out of it looking as good as when you went into it. For more information on personal training please feel free to call me Tel 310 279 8117 email me at bodypossiblefitness@gmail.com Website Body Possible