How to make those holiday calories work for you

This time of year can be especially tough sticking to both a workout routine and healthy nutrition plan.

Whether you’re attending a family gathering, work party or just having an afternoon out with your friends, unhealthy food choices will be around every corner.

Lucky for us, our nutrition does not have to be perfect all the time, and if we take advantage of efficient nutrition timing throughout the day, we can have the best of both worlds. What I’m emphasizing is, not only can we continue to eat some of our favorite foods but we will be able to have our physique results keep progressing as well.

By timing your “cheat,” or unhealthier meals, out at specific times throughout the day, the holiday calories from these meals are less likely to be stored as fat and more prone to be used for muscle recovery.

This is all due to the state you put your body in while you work out, especially when you work out with more resistance training methods like weights. When we lift weights we are breaking down our muscles and leaving them into a catabolic breakdown state. So in order to flip the script and turn the broken down muscles into a naturally occurring anabolic state we need to consume calories.

So how does this all relate to our favorite holiday cheat meals?

After our resistance training workouts our metabolisms are sped up and our muscles want calories in order to start the rebuilding process.

Ideally, we want to be consuming lean proteins, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats in our post workout nutrition. But when it comes to giving into your cravings this is on one the best times to eat out at one of your favorite restaurants, eat those processed comforting foods and enjoy yourself.

The reasoning behind this is because most “cheat” meals are composed of higher fat, simple carbohydrates or simple sugars. These foods are usually higher on the glycemic index so they will spike your blood insulin faster and our bodies digest these calories quicker. Now usually these foods are not ideal, but post workout with our sped up metabolism and broken down muscles these calories actually travel to the muscle groups faster and can jump start the recovery process.

So, ideally plan the unhealthy meal within one to two hours post workout when glycogen resynthesis has been shown to be at its highest. When we consume calories they can travel to four places, our muscles, our liver to be stored, our brain for energy or stored as fat.

Let’s not have those holiday cheat meals stored as fat so make sure to plan your meals accordingly.