It is Thanksgiving break, and you are hitting the gym every day so you can eat the entire table on Thanksgiving. The day arrives, and you have been both mentally and physically preparing for the meal you are about to endure. Before you know it, your plate is now finished, and you are on the way to grab your second one. You probably are going to end up getting dessert afterward as well. You now find yourself in the “couch potato” mode. That stuffed do-nothing feeling doesn’t stop there. Everyone knows that the Thanksgiving meal leftovers last for another two days, which means more eating and lounging. Thanksgiving is now over, and you can get back on the grind and get your workouts back in.

Before you know it, you have fully sweated out all that turkey and get smacked with another holiday. Once Christmas time comes, I feel like it is only downhill from there. If your Christmas holiday is anything like mine, you have at least five different holiday parties. There’s the holiday party for your job, another one with just your friends, maybe one with your team, and at least two different dinners with your family. All those holiday parties bring for endless amounts of food and being too stuffed for the gym! “It is the holidays, and we are on break. I will get back to the gym eventually,” is what you keep telling yourself. Suddenly, a week out of the gym goes by, then two weeks, then three. It is now December 31st, and you feel like the turkey you enjoyed devouring last month.

January 1st now approaches, and of course, you want to start off the year on the right path, so you find yourself finally making your way back to the gym. Instantly, you regret your decision while walking through the door. You forget that everyone and their mother also decides to go back to the gym during this time as well. You are now annoyed because all the machines are taken. You are now hating the gym and questioning why you even came in the first place. You finally start working out, and five minutes in, every part of your body begins to ache. An hour and a half later, you are drenched in your own sweat and now regretting every bite you took and all the lounging around you did during the break. You feel defeated, you have no energy left and are basically crawling out of the gym. Somehow, even despite all of the pain, you still can’t help but think to yourself, “Wow, that was such a great workout, and I am now ready to conquer more gym days!”

It has now been about a week since that initial “getting back” workout, and my stomach is still hurting every time I laugh, from all the crunches I attempted to do.

Here’s to many more meals and even more killer workouts!