Tag Archives: holidays

Don’t Be Average

Life Health

The average American gains 8 lbs from November through January. Think about this for a minute. That is almost 1 pound per week. 3,500 calories equals one lbs, so that is an excess of 28,000 calories. Consider that most Americans gain weight in their early adulthood (about 18 lbs). Common sense says that if we as a society gains 8 lbs during the holidays yet only 18 during adulthood then we clearly lose some weight during spring and summer months. What this leads me to conclude is that we must control ourselves over the next few months in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle over the long term.

 

Today I am going to give you a tip for each major eating festival of the upcoming season and how to reduce our weight gain over the next few months.

 

Halloween the beginning of the end.

 

Today is Halloween and as you all know this one of the most glutinous days of the year. My son will come home with at least 10 lbs of pure sugar. The tip I have for halloween is be a human, don’t turn down offers of free food. Take all that free candy home and take a few treats out for yourself and then donate the rest of the candy. Do not keep the candy around your house as it will only lead to more and more eating of junk food.

 

Thanksgiving 2 the gluttony continues.

 

Thanksgiving is a great day to eat and be around friends and family. In my world there are few things more important than breaking bread with other people. Put your phones away, enjoy the meal and do not feel any guilt for having extra helpings. Now for the best tip all year, come to our turkey burn workout and burn your turkey with us on Thanksgiving morning. Also, bring some friends as this class is free to all. Then after dinner take a nice family walk.

 

Christmas Season and the multitude of other holidays around Dec/Jan.

 

December into January is a hard one to navigate as there are too many celebrations. Whether it be the holiday work party, the friends get together, the family get together, or a New Years celebration it can all be a chance to fall off the rails. As anyone who knows me is aware of, I believe be a human, have fun and have a drink. I also know that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. My tip for the weeks of celebrating the end of the year is to simply drink more water. This is a great time to make sure we are getting our gallon of water. Not only will this help you feel full and hopefully make the 4 pieces of pie reduce to maybe 3, it will also help the body functioning to burn some body fat.

 

January enters the picture.

 

If you made it through the holiday season without any huge weight gain then it is now time to stay the course. The battle is not yet won. Let’s set some goals as we get through the long winter. It is still too easy to allow the lack of sunlight to affect us through the winter. Find the winter activities that you can do and stay active. The gym will be more crowded as well, so use this as motivation that others are with you.

 

Happy Halloween and use these tips to stay ready, because as a wise man once said, “If you stay ready you don’t have to get ready.”

 

Hamer

Holiday Season Tips

Alcohol, Clean Eating, Diet, Fitness, Life Health,

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The holiday season is upon us and we here at UF are excited for the new year, while also celebrating an exciting end to 2021. Here are some tips (and some ways we can help), for a strong end to 2021, and stronger start to 2022.

 

  1. Bring someone to the gym for our free week. If you have anyone coming from out of town, bring them to the gym Dec 23-Dec 31st for a free week. Have a friend who doesn’t train, bring them over. This offer is for anyone who is not a member and they do not need a member with them. This is an open invite for all to come try UF for one week. This membership will be an unlimited membership so please help others discover the beauty of strength.
  2. Give yourself a break. Yes, holiday parties will involve cookies and libations. Just get back on it the next day. It’s OK to be human.
  3. Keep your sleep schedule. Sleep is one of the most important acts humans do. Through all the adaptation we have seen as humans, the body has never changed how much rest we need. So try to stay on point.
  4. Get ready for SPIN! We are adding spin back to UF. Starting in January we will be having spin classes as well as our normal cardiolab classes. So try something new here at UF.
  5. Drink more water. Before the cookie tray hit the water fountain. Water will help reduce our urges, as well as just generally making us better.
  6. Serve others. Servant leadership is very important, especially at this time of the year. Do some good out there, it will come back to you ten fold.

 

Thank you for reading my rants about how we can improve ourselves and others. Now let’s all go out there this holiday season and share the love.

 

Ham

Tis’ the Season of Bulking

Clean Eating, Diet, Fitness, Life Health

UF has a very diverse membership, we have competitive lifters, athletes, business workers, yoga fans, and everyone in between. For some of these people bulking is a good word, for others it is an unwanted side affect of the holidays. The cold weather tends to bring less hikes, less sunlight, and more cookies/libations into the Pittsburgh region. For those of you who would like to avoid bulking this time of the year, I have some tips to help you out.

 

  1. Focus on what matters. Will one cookie or one drink be the difference maker? NO! Yet, one drink and one cookie nightly will be. So enjoy the cookie at the party and realize it won’t be the one that matters, the ones you have at home may be the difference maker. So have fun, be social, enjoy the cookie tray, then go home and get back to your healthy eating habits.
  2. Stick to your plan. Just like in step one, we must continue to do what is right when no one is watching. Look in your kitchen, do you have healthy or unhealthy options? Surround yourself with good options.
  3. Find mini workouts. Make a commitment to walk, jog, move, or do anything throughout the day that will burn a few extra calories. If you have a dog walk the little guy he needs it.
  4. Set a new routine. Over the next few months set some new goals. Make your goals input not outcome based. If you have an Apple Watch then a simple one is fill your rings. If not then how about just walking daily. Set a very simple achievable goal and stick to it daily.
  5. Come see us at UF more! Yeah I had to plug the gym here. We are hosting out annual Turkey Burn workout. Come and burn a few hundred calories prior to stuff your face. Then go stuff your face and enjoy every bite.
  6. Last but not least. Give yourself a break. We will all mess up, and we will all fall off the wagon, that’s OK, just get back up and keep moving. Life, fitness, and health are all marathons, do what you can to keep moving.

 

Happy holiday season and happy bulk season too for our lifters.

Holiday Tunes to Get Bumpy to

Life Health, ,

It’s time to crank up the volume to 11 with these 10 songs to get you in the Holiday spirit, while you smack some iron around!

 

“CeJ’s Top 10 Holiday Tunes to Get Bumpy To”

 

1) O Come All Ye Faithful- off of Bad Religon’s Christmas Songs Album. Punk rock and holiday jams really speeds things up.

 

2) Carol Of The Bells- off of August Burns Red Sleddin Hill,  A Holiday Album. Tune the guitars to drop D and get to shredding. They just dropped a new Holiday album, go check it out.

 

3) You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch- By Small Town Titans. The Grinch + Metal = Bumps.

 

4) The Hanukkah Song- Adam Sandler rocks this live version.

 

5) Things I Want- Jack Black, Tenacious D & Sum 41 join forces to melt your merry faces off.

 

6) The Season’s Upon Us- off of Dropkick Murphys Signed & Sealed in Blood. This song will make you sway back and forth with some nog in hand and family in a headlock.

 

7) Sock It To Me Santa- By Bob Seger & The Last Heard. If this song doesn’t get you moving, you might be a mean one Mr. Grinch.

 

8) All I Want For Christmas Is You-  By My Chemical Romance off of The 20 Songs that Keep Giving Album.

 

9) Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)-  By The Darkness. We’ve all hit the high note in ” I Believe In A Thing Called Love”, now let’s belt out some cheer here.

 

10) Making Christmas- By Rise Against is a cover from Danny Elfman’s (From Oingo Boingo) Nightmare Before Christmas score.

 

 

Honorable Mentions:

 

x) Run Rudolph Run-Lemmy

x) What Christmas Means To Me- Stevie Wonder

x) Happy Holidays, You B- Blink 182

x) I Saw 3 Ships- B.E. Taylor

x) Christmas Christmas- Cheap Trick

 

 

Let me know some of your favorite Holiday songs to Get Bumpy to and drop them in the comments. Hope you enjoyed this list and found some new bangers.

 

 

Happy Holidays,

 

 

CeJ