How to Lose Fat and/or Gain Lean Mass over the Holidays without Training

The holidays come with a few obstacles when it comes to your health and body composition goals.  First off there is heightened stress from shopping, travel, end of the year deadlines, and just overall more on the average person’s plate. With a more hectic schedule, it’s easier to succumb to convenience foods and miss a few trips to the gym.   The week of the holiday is the hardest of all to maintain your routine, so what if we could have that week off and still get to make progress?

 

There are many names for the concept I’m about to get in to, but the basic principle is controlled overtraining.  The idea is that you push your body beyond it’s normal limits so that it will super compensate for the work you have put in if given proper rest and nutrition.

 

If you are on track you should already be hitting the gym 4 times per week.  For the week of Dec 10th and 17th, the 2 weeks prior to week of December 25th, we are going to be putting in double time.  This way that last week you don’t have to juggle gym sessions with last minute shopping or things at work.

 

Here’s the theory behind the madness.  Train to the point where your body is just becoming overtrained for 2 weeks.  Overtraining for long periods of time is bad. Planned overtraining is where you just push slightly into overtraining mode so that your body will rebound and create a hormonal environment that will promote lean muscle gains and an increased metabolic rate during.  In this case a 3rd rest week, in which your body will partition more nutrients to recovering from the intense 2 week period before.  This means that you will need to take in more calories during that 3rd week and allow for plenty of recovery. Through Functional exercise your body will be able to make better use of the higher amounts of carbohydrates and increased calories consumed over the holidays this way.  By training to an extreme the two weeks prior, we can accomplish a prolonged increased metabolic rate and improved nutrient partitioning (more nutrients being stored in the muscle and less in fat) without the need of workouts during week 3.  This way the only exercise you will have to do is load your plate and open presents, and if you are with my family, hold your tongue

 

To train twice per day properly, it’s better to train the same body part(s) twice in the same day.  This allows for recovery of those muscle groups on the other days.  Below I have provided two possible workout splits.  Option 1 is more for the more advanced trainee that is already pretty strong and someone looking to build muscle mass during their holiday week.  If you are a beginner or a female not interested in building upper body muscle much, then option 2 is a better option for you.  Now both of these programs are designed to increase metabolic rate the following week, and how much muscle you put on vs how much body comp change will be not only determined by which option you choose but how you eat in the following week.  It is important to eat more, up to an extra 1000 calories from carbs for those doing option 1, and probably an extra 500 per day for those doing option 2.

 

If losing bodyfat is the most important thing for you, you still need to increase caloric intake, but you should avoid meals that are high in fat and carbs at the same time.  So if you are going to load up on potatoes at dinner, skip the gravy and butter and opt for lean meat and salad greens with it.  Have your fat at breakfast and avoid carbs until the later meals of the day.

[Source: http://www.functionalfitmag.com/blog/2012/12/06/how-to-lost-fat-andor-gain-lean-mass-over-the-holidays-without-training/]