Do you feel like this panda?
Ate too much at Thanksgiving? Maybe had one too many beers? Woke up feeling like Jabba the Hutt this morning?
Good for you. I did all of those things. And ya know what? I’m glad I did.
One bad day (or two, or three) of overeating and not exercising isn’t going to kill you (unless you decide to eat things like fireworks and snort gunpowder…don’t do that). Your metabolism isn’t as smart as you think it is – a few days of overeating isn’t enough for it to freak out and shut down; it simply processes the extra food and then goes back to normal.
Where you can get in trouble is when you start using holidays to justify future inaction. Don’t take a few days off for Thanksgiving and then say to yourself “meh, Christmas is in a few weeks so why bother exercising now? I’ll get to it after that.” All of a sudden, Christmas rolls around and you’re saying things like “meh, New Year’s is right around the corner, I’ll wait until 2011 and then get in shape!”
There’s always going to be something: a friend’s birthday, a wedding, some random holiday barbeque, whatever. It’s will always be easier to put things off until “life gets a little less hectic” or “after blah blah blah.” Stop waiting. Stop rationalizing being lazy, and start taking care of business! Considering sales of the Rebel Fitness Guide have shot up big time over the past few days, it looks like quite a few rebels in training are ready to get back on track immediately.
Join them.
Stay active between now and Christmas. Don’t shut down your healthy eating simply because you know you won’t be eating well again in a few weeks. And sure, it gets darker earlier, it’s probably cold outside, and settling down with a pint of ice cream sounds much better than a running in the snow or braving the elements to go to the gym. But if you’re serious about getting in shape, you can’t just take months off at a time and expect to see any sort of results. You’re smarter than that (after all, you’re reading Nerd Fitness).
You’re not on a diet, you’re not exercising until you hit a goal and then going back to old habits. You’re building a solid foundation of permanent changes that will result in you getting more of what you want out of life. Tomorrow never comes; get started today.
Not after Christmas.
Not after New Year’s.
Today.
Free T-Shirts!
Today is Cyber-Monday, which means every online store is heavily discounting random products with ridiculous deals. Speaking of which, you still have until midnight tonight to pick up one of Chris Guillebeau’s excellent guides at 15% off (use the password PUMPKIN). Well, over here at Nerd Fitness HQ, I decided I’d rather just give away free stuff.
100% discounts: that’s how Nerd Fitness rolls.
Nerd Fitness t-shirts will be available for pre-order beginning this Thursday, December 2nd! They’ll start shipping the following Monday (the 7th), which means they’ll arrive in PLENTY of time to make great Christmas presents for every single one of your relatives (wink wink, nudge nudge). I figured today would be a great time to give away a few of them.
I’m giving away three shirts, because three seems like a good number. Here’s how to win:
- Become a fan of Nerd Fitness on Facebook and answer the latest post on there: “If you could exercise with anybody in the world, living or dead, who would it be and why?”
- Follow me at @SteveKamb on Twitter and tweet something like: “I want to win a Nerd Fitness t-shirt courtesy of @SteveKamb – I’ll be the coolest kid at school!” Feel free to get creative, just make sure the @SteveKamb is in your reply so I can track it.
- Leave a comment on this article and answer this question– What are you doing today to get back on the horse after the holiday break? Are you going to the gym today? Going for a run? Cooking your healthy meals for the rest of the week?
Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, December 1st, and random winners will be announced on Thursday. Feel free to do all three methods for three chances to win. If you’re in the States, I hope you had a great holiday weekend. If you’re out in the rest of the world and don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope your normal weekend was full of good times. Now go do something.
The T-shirts are coming! The T-shirts are coming!
-Steve
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