Let’s talk about fitness during the holidays.
My whole month of December is busy with activities between my birthday and Christmas and everything in between. So basically the whole month.
No battle with junk food this year
I did a pretty good job this year of not over eating and not eating junk food. I bought Turtles which are gluten-free – they are individually wrapped so that extra work actually kept me from grabbing a handful each time. Plus they’re fairly large compared to Pot of Gold (also gluten free) and similar boxed treats. One is often plenty for me! I get moderate satisfaction from the variety of textures in Turtles. I can see why they are so popular.
We had lots of apples and oranges in the house to snack on, and crackers instead of potato chips sometimes in the evening. I only sit to watch TV for about an hour a day, so that’s the timing for snacks, often in the evening.
Keeping active as Christmas approached
Physical activity was difficult to fit in. Unless you count shopping! I did substantial walking indoors at malls because there were so many festive events going on in my town. It’s been pouring rain most days all month. Mayfair Mall had late hours for the whole month apparently, and I was there several times when I would’ve otherwise been reading or playing video games.
I greatly enjoyed checking in with my favourite store clerks. I made relatively few purchases, but important ones, for myself and others.
In the last week before Christmas, I was very creatively active. I made several little figures with seed beads for my sister, and she loved it. I made a manger scene with polymer clay for my brother and he loved it. I was very surprised how much attention those hand-made gifts got!
Those particular gifts were challenging in their design, as in planning ahead to make sure the beads stayed in place while the glue was drying, and that they figures for the manger scene would stand up once they were baked. Mary unfortunately is a little off-balance so she tips over too easily. But that can be fixed.
I ran out of time for my exciting goal to make a Christmas song with my synthesizers. I plan to work on it in January now and enjoy it all the same.
I suppose I exercised the equivalent of 3 hours of brisk walking in the past week, and gave myself several checkmarks for doing creative projects and social evemts. I even made time to quietly read by myself.
Lessons from Christmas week
Balance is good! I didn’t expect to do any exercising this week, but I was on my feet all the time, doing crafts or cooking or cleaning. I had lots of alone moments. And lots of family-dropping-by moments.
Make time for yourself to be alone. I think that’s good advice all the time, and it prevents feeling discouraged or overwhelmed.
My next blog post will be surrounding New Year’s Eve AND my 1-year fitness blogging anniversary just occurred, so I’ll have another feel-good message to share with you again!