If you bench more than your in-laws, don’t let them punk you out. This
holiday season resist the unspoken plague of letting people weaker
than you bully you around and name your schedule AND WORSE your
plates!!!
This is a call to arms to the silverbacks keeping poodle dickery at
arms length, it is time to stand up for yourself and not lose your
gains over dry ass turkey and cranberry sauce. If you lay pipe and
throw around triple digit dumbbells, name your damn terms. If you
don’t, then enjoy the shitty stuffing and listen to your annoying ass
aunts talk about their teacup collections or whatever old women ramble
about nowadays.
I always love the holidays BUT not for the reasons you think. The food
usually sucks, the company is saturated, people keep their houses way
too damn hot, everyone congregates around people they can hardly stand
to do activities they would never do the rest of the year. I actually
boycotted holidays with anyone besides my own tribe and it was the
best decision I’ve made since buying a Traeger.
While you may be telling yourself “man this guy is a hybrid of the
Grinch and Scrooge”. While I do not disagree with you I would like to
bring two points up to your attention
-If turkey was worth a shit, there would be a Texas turkey house in
every city or you would eat it more than once a damn year?
-Would you ever wear anything with wool, buttons, or zippers to your
own house when eating mass quantities of food?
Outside of quakers, Mennonites, and polygamists, the answer is probably no.
I mean Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer never even resorted to turkey and
they were not exactly mentally stable.
On to business, here is how to remain a badass and not be a fat ass
this holiday season!
Prioritize protein-
When you go on vacation you stick to somewhat of a budget (if you’re
an adult but that’s a lecture for another day). But the fact of the
matter is hopefully you’re not going into debt on vacation. When the
holiday season rolls around, people don’t get fat off one day, but
it’s being an asshole for days and weeks at a time that bites them in
the ass. When sticking to your nutritional plan, follow these
guidelines. Hit your protein goals first, this will make sure you are
at least covering those bases and maintaining muscle during the season
of shitty drivers. From there make sure you are staying as close to
your calories as possible. Where people mess up is those looking to
gain muscle will under eat due to the shitty food choices. And those
looking to lose fat will overeat due to somehow being conned into
eating shitty food. If you nail your protein target and meet your
calorie count, you will not be hitting yoyo numbers on the scale and
you will be able to polish up body composition on the backend very
easily by getting back to your macro counts.
Call gyms ahead-
One unconventional reason I love holidays is you will meet the coolest
people at the gym. I’ve never met a slapass at the gym on
Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, or Christmas. Hell usually New Year’s Eve
and New Year’s Day the resolution crowd hasn’t started yet so you’re
good there as well. One of my best friends in the world and I, (before
I boycotted holiday travel), our tradition was to lift on holidays
together. God we had some bloodbaths. But here is how to do it when
traveling. Call ahead. Introduce yourself. Don’t be an asshole. And
usually even if they aren’t open, someone at the gym will be there and
they will guide you what time to come and who to meet. If you travel
to a city often, that gym should know you by name and deadlift if you
are serious about your gains.
Don’t wait until the day of to schedule-
This is part of the planning process of the call ahead pump approach.
But this goes for all facets of holiday gains or shame. Plan your
training split weeks in advance, if you do not have a way to train on
those days of dry turkey and drunk aunts, front load your split to
start the weekend before, and then clean up on the backend what days
you have left to hit. Bring your meal prep with you so you only fall
to the temptation of dry bird and stale mashed for one meal at most.
Rendezvous ahead with the other cranberry sauce hating meatheads to
get some monster sessions in for a deadlift party or bench crew or
two.
Have some damn pride in your gains-
I don’t tip baristas at Starbucks. Why? I work too hard for my money
to tip some purple haired muppet to turn around and grab my black
coffee and hand it to me at less than sub maximal speed. I came here
for function not convenience. I feel the same about my gains. I work
too hard year round, week after week, decade after decade, to blow my
gains at the expense of saving old ladies' feelings. I’m not missing a
damn lift for your grandparents who don’t even have Home Alone 2 on!!!
If you wouldn’t let someone take your cash off you DO NOT let non
lifters steal your gains!!!
Keep your eye on the summer prize-
Here’s the fact the oat milk drinkers and double digit dumbbell dorks
haven’t quite grasped yet. Your summer body will be decided during the
holiday season. Another reason I love the holiday season (again for my
reasons not your aunt with diabetes) is that you see who is really
about it! You see who respects themselves, you see who lives this
shit, you see who this isn’t some frat boy hobby for! When I see
someone pull up to the gym on Thanksgiving, meal prep in hand, instead
of playing tickle me football with some double digit testosterone
level dinguses who got picked last at recess growing up, I know that
dude is going to be built to the freaking hilt come swim season. Last
year I didn’t just beat the other husbands and dads at the swim pool
in the summer, I beat their ass in the winter when they were deep
throating green jello while I was slinging pig iron and training
direct neck and forearm work!
Whether your goal is to lift anything that isn't bolted or be able to
iron wrinkled clothes on your washboard abs this summer, let holiday
season be your friend and not your foe as you keep busting your ass
towards the body you want!
