Moderation the key to maintaining fitness over the holidays

My ankle hurts. What should I do? - John C.

Go to health services, sissy-boy. I am not a doctor.

I have gotten into a really good routine here at school. I eat healthy and exercise regularly. The problem is, these habits were nonexistent at home. I was the total opposite - I ate junk food and did not exercise. How can I motivate myself to resist falling back into my old ways? -Sondra Lavin, Lafayette College

Congratulations on establishing a healthier lifestyle. It is definitely difficult to resist the temptations of bad habits from home. However, here are a few tips that should help keep you motivated to maintain, and perhaps improve, your level of personal fitness while you are relaxing at home for a month over the holidays.

As soon as you get home, go to the supermarket and by foods similar to the ones you have been eating here. If you have been eating salad, brown rice, tuna, etc., then purchase those things and keep then readily at hand. Having easy access to more nutritious foods will make it easier to pass up that bag of potato chips sitting in the cupboard.

However, that is not to say you should abstain totally from foods you enjoy. After all, you are on vacation, and there is nothing wrong with a little bit of junk food in moderation; moderation is the key word here.

Immediately draw up an exercise schedule, and stick to it. Plan out your time at home to accomplish some short-term fitness goal, or to at least make it to the gym or the high school track a certain number of times. If you exercise regularly, you can enjoy some lazing around time without feeling guilty or feeling like you are slipping back into old habits.

Make it clear to everyone who has an impact on your eating and activities that you have changed at school. Tell your parents, your friends, your siblings, anyone who will listen. Once you establish this new fact about yourself, you will be able to more comfortably make the transition to a healthier home lifestyle without feeling awkward about refusing to share that tube of raw cookie dough with your best friend because it doesn't appeal to you anymore.

Again, the key to successfully maintaining healthy habits at home is moderation. If you go home and intend to adopt a Spartan lifestyle- abstaining from all the little habits you enjoyed before you went to school- you are more than likely to slip completely back into those old habits.

However, if you begin to implement your new lifestyle in moderation (read: don't go home with the intention of working out for two hours everyday), while at the same time enjoying in moderation some of your so-called bad habits (junk food, for example), it will be much easier to maintain your current level of fitness without falling back on the bad habits. Remember, it is called vacation for a reason-make sure you enjoy yourself.



I see you jumping rope in the gym a lot. Why? I remember jumping rope in fifth grade, singing "Strawberry Shortcake". Aren't you a little old to be jumping rope?-Kate Hofmann

Kate, Kate, Kate. The benefits of jumping rope extend way beyond the elementary school playground. Jumping rope is a great form of cardio vascular exercise. It improves timing, coordination, and agility. Also, the motion stimulates the front and rear delts to help develop those sought-after cuts. And finally, jumping rope is great because is requires only one small piece of equipment that can be purchased for under ten dollars.