Thanksgiving is the official start of the holiday season, and the food indulgences that come with it. Unfortunately, overeating during the holidays can, overtime, contribute to growing inseams and expanding waistlines. Instead, stay ahead of the curve this Thanksgiving with these challenging workouts.

You don’t have to worry about your Thanksgiving dinner sabotaging your weight loss progress if you correctly plan ahead for the holiday. As you’ve probably learned here on Calorie Count, weight loss is the result of burning more calories than you consume. That’s it. It has little to do with exercise (although exercise helps tremendously). 

Now, we know that on Thanksgiving we will be eating loads of calories or at least a lot more than we normally do. It generally takes a reduction of 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound (which equals about a 500 hundred calorie reduction each day of the week) and our ultimate goal is to enjoy the holiday as much as we can without depriving ourselves too much. Therefore, it helps to burn more calories this week so that we can eat a little more without falling too far off of our calorie count regimen.

The best way to burn more calories is to get more active with exercise. Below are 4 different effective but fairly simple workouts that you can do leading up to Thanksgiving.

Tips: Make sure you warm-up and stretch before each workout. If you want to challenge yourself, you can add weights to the workouts or simply do the workouts more than one time. Ideally, 3-4 rounds of each workout will suffice. However, if you are just starting out, complete 1-2 rounds at your own pace.

Sunday: 

Set your timers for two minutes. Do each of the following exercises for 2 minutes with a 30 second PLANK in between each exercise.

1. Jog with High Knees
2. Tricep Dips
3. Froggy Jumps
4. Front Kick Lunge
5. Mountain Climbers

Monday:

Complete each of the following exercises 20 times, then 15 times, then 10 times, then 5 times.  Follow this with a 30 second PLANK then proceed to complete each of the following exercises 5 times, then 10 times, then 15 times, then 20 times.

1. Toe Taps with Jumps
2. Pushups
3. Burpees
4. Squat Kicks

Tuesday:

Set your clocks for 5 minutes. Complete exercise #1 five times at the top of each minute and finish the minute with your favorite cardio exercise (like jumping jacks, running in place, jump rope etc.)  After you’ve completed 5 minutes with exercise #1, move on to exercise #2 and do the same thing.  Reset your clock for 5 minutes and complete exercise #2 five times at the top of each minute. Finish the minutes with your favorite cardio.  Repeat this same pattern for exercise #3 and #4.

1. Front Kick Lunge
2. Pushups
3. Burpees
4. Tricep Dips

Wednesday

Set your clocks for 10 minutes. Complete each of the following exercise 10 times. When you get to exercise number 9, restart at the top with no break. Continue this pattern until time is up.  For more intensity you can add more time to your clock (start at 15 minutes or 20 minutes).

1. Jog with High Knees
2. Tricep Dips
3. Froggy Jumps
4. Front Kick Lunge
5. Mountain Climbers
6. Front Kick Lunge
7. Pushups
8. Burpees
9. Tricep Dips

Like my Facebook Page and let me know what you thought about these workouts. You can also find me at www.keepitmovingfitness.com.

Your thoughts...

Will your workout regimen change during the holiday season? How and why or why not?

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