Bri­an Chin Le­ung

So you have start­ed train­ing hard since ear­ly Sep­tem­ber. Every­thing is go­ing as planned in terms of your phys­i­cal prepa­ra­tion for Car­ni­val 2010. Your mid-sec­tion has shrunk con­sid­er­ably; your arms, legs, chest, back and butt are be­gin­ning to look firm and toned. There is just one prob­lem: you are wor­ried about sur­viv­ing the Christ­mas sea­son, and all the culi­nary de­lights that may de­stroy that beau­ti­ful physique you are work­ing so hard to build. Well don't de­spair; there is bad news and good news. The bad news is that if you over-in­dulge; you may put on as much as ten pounds of pure, unadul­ter­at­ed fat. The good news is that if you fol­low my gen­er­al eat­ing guide­lines and ex­er­cise plan, you may ac­tu­al­ly lose weight over the Christ­mas sea­son.

Plan of ac­tion

Sev­en­ty per cent of look­ing good is about what you eat; if you eat the wrong foods, you won't have to wor­ry about play­ing in a Car­ni­val band; you will be the band! Okay, let's look at what you are up against. You have to stay away from foods that car­ry a high Glycemic In­dex rat­ing, such white flour or re­fined sug­ar. This will al­so in­clude foods that con­tain white flour, re­fined sug­ar or both. Black fruit cake, ponche de cr�me, and sor­rel are clas­sic ex­am­ples. I know some peo­ple who can pol­ish off half a black fruit cake in just one morn­ing. That is scary.

Now don't con­jure up im­ages of eat­ing egg whites and let­tuce on Christ­mas Day. I am mere­ly stat­ing that from now till the end of De­cem­ber, there are cer­tain foods that you should com­plete­ly avoid (like those list­ed above), and some that should be eat­en in mod­er­a­tion. Pastelles, pas­ta, stuff­ing, white rice, bread etc, can al­so broad­en your waist­line fast, if you over-in­dulge. You have got to be se­lec­tive in your car­bo­hy­drate in­take. Have lean turkey with plen­ty of veg­eta­bles and a good carb like sweet pota­to which car­ries a low glycemic rat­ing. Snack on al­monds and not on ice cream or choco­lates.

Christ­mas ex­er­cise

Dur­ing the last two weeks in De­cem­ber, I want you to in­crease your car­dio. If you nor­mal­ly run or walk two miles in each ses­sion; I want you to run or walk four miles per ses­sion. If you nor­mal­ly do two Tae-bo or two spin class­es per week; I want you to in­crease your class­es to three or even four per week. In ad­di­tion to car­dio; I want you to find time for weight train­ing at least three times per week.

Con­cen­trate on com­pound move­ments like clean and press, free squats, bent-knee dead lift and flat bench press. These ex­er­cis­es re­quire re­cruit­ment of sev­er­al mus­cle groups and are great for putting on over­all mus­cle mass; as a re­sult they (the ex­er­cis­es) al­so have the po­ten­tial to raise your me­tab­o­lism. On Christ­mas Day, have a great lunch with your fam­i­ly. But re­mem­ber, mod­er­a­tion is the key. On Box­ing Day, put on your sneak­ers and hit the road.

Keep Train­ing.