I spent all of Thanksgiving Break eating and sitting on my butt. Then I came back to school and forgot to go to the gym for a few days. Should I just jump right back into it or take it easy for a few workouts?
- Manan Shah, Manan and the Bananas
After taking some time off, it can be hard to get back into the gym and back on a workout routine. The key is to take things slow at first and then try to push yourself a little bit more each workout.
The general rule of thumb is that for every week that you took off, decrease weight or volume by about 10 percent. If before Thanksgiving break you were bench pressing 100 pounds, the first time back in the gym start with 80.
See how you are feeling and make adjustments from there. It's important to keep in mind that no one knows your body as well as you. If you feel as though you can push a bit harder, don't feel constrained by my advice. It is important to remember, however, that muscle soreness will increase after a layoff. Keep this in mind when you are deciding how hard to push yourself because you don't want to be unable to move for five days after the workout.
When I go home for winter break, I can't afford to join a fancy private gym but don't want to stop working out altogether. What can I do?
- Andy Bons, probably recovering from an injury
This is a problem that many students face. My first piece of advice would be to see if you have a local YMCA that offers cheap, short-term student memberships. Although their equipment isn't always the best, they should have many of the same machines and free weight equipment as the Tufts gym. And if that doesn't work out, there's still no reason to get concerned.
There are plenty of worthwhile exercises that can be done with nothing more than yourself and a small patch of floor. Don't worry about exactly replicating the types of workouts you have done at school. If your goal is just to stay in shape for the few weeks you are away from school, try to do a combination of stretching, cardiovascular training and strength training.
Some strength training exercises that you can do in the comfort of your home include squats (also variations like jump squats and one-legged squats), pushups, and arm curls, extensions and shoulder presses (just grab something heavy in the house). A pull-up bar is a worthwhile investment of about $15 and all you need to install it is a doorway and a screwdriver.
I like to eat a lot of food, but I don't want to put on weight. How can I eat healthily without craving the foods that I love?
- Nick Bercovici, once ate 11 hot dogs in four minutes
When it comes to eating, one of the most important pieces of advice I can give you is to eat small meals frequently. Eating throughout the day does a couple of things. It keeps your metabolic rate up so that you can consume more calories without putting on weight. More importantly, it prevents you from ever getting really hungry to the point that you feel the need to stuff yourself. Preventing intense hunger also helps to curb cravings and avoid unhealthy snacking.
The second piece of advice I would give you is not to eat when drinking alcohol. Alcohol tends to make us hungry and also lowers our inhibitions, making it more likely that we binge on an entire cake or a platter of buffalo wings. It's easy to consume 1,000 calories or more in a late night drunken snack. If you follow these two pieces of advice, you should be able to minimize (and perhaps entirely eliminate) any possible weight gain.
