Fitness on the Wire: After Turkey Day
Submitted by Carson Now Reader on Sun, 11/25/2012 - 7:09pm
Overeating at Thanksgiving means four days of overindulgence. It’s long enough to set a pattern for life. Thanksgiving dinner alone brings with it about five thousand calories, that’s a lot of eating. We overeat to relieve tension, and there is sure enough of that to go around at Thanksgiving. Relatives who haven’t seen each other for years get together for ego mashing over the potatoes. You end up with a migraine and a killer desire for pie. And we were born with overdeveloped guilt feelings regarding pie.
Here’s your “after” Thanksgiving cure for stress: relax. Go outside by yourself for 15 minutes. Being alone can heal those feelings of stress. Close your eyes and breathe slowly and deeply for 10 breaths. Now, you need an understanding about those “sweet cravings.” They are cyclic. The “high” that you get from sugar comes seconds after you eat. And the “low” follows anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours, depending on how much pie you ate. The “low” will be much lower than normal. You will continue to bounce between high and low and be on edge as long as you continue to indulge. And the side effect of all that pie is, you guessed it, weight gain!
I hate to bring this up, especially at Thanksgiving, but there is no better remedy for eating binges and stress than a good hard workout, whether walking up and down hills for 40 minutes or jumping rope in the garage at midnight. (The relatives won’t find you there). More and more of my students go out for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s a good thought, no leftovers to tempt your midnight cravings and the guests go home earlier because the refrigerator is empty.
Turkey Day is over, open that refrigerator, look at that that last piece of pie and feed it to the dog. Stuff the left over sweet potato casserole down the disposal. Then drag your overstuffed body off the couch and into exercise. I guarantee you that your relatives won’t follow you and neither will the pie.
— Carson City fitness writer Jerry Vance is a regular contributor to Carson Now and instructor at Sweat Shop, a co-ed fitness program offered at the Carson City Community and Recreation Center with personalized floor classes containing aerobics, pilates, and yoga. Classes are located in the Comstock Room on the east side of the Times of classes vary. Go here for more information.
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