Keep Your House Healthy This Holiday Season

Home. A concept so ubiquitous it scarcely warrants a definition. Home, it is often said, is where the self is truest to the self. Behaviors which one might never exhibit in public, or in the company of colleagues, or even among close friends, are on full display (for pets and immediate family) within the confines of one’s home. These behaviors might include: the wearing of unflattering attire, performance of misguided dance routines, the assigning of absurd monikers, et cetera.

The behaviors might also include ingestion of foods which one might feel a bit too ashamed to eat in plain view of colleagues or fellow restaurant patrons. Larger quantities than what one might eat in public are also acceptable behind closed doors, or at least easily rationalized. Where questionable dietary behaviors are concerned, the opportunities and consequences tend to increase, respectively, in number and in severity during the holiday season.

Thus, knowing that those four walls which comprise and enclose one’s home tend to encourage dietary activities of less-than-admirable nature, give some consideration as to how one might keep your house healthy this holiday season.

Keep a Healthy Home This Holiday 

So, then—keeping in mind the importance of maintaining one’s health during the most challenging season in which to do so, experiment with one or more of the below-listed tips to keep your house healthy this holiday season. Some of those listed are perhaps more demanding than others, but each is listed with the express purpose providing insight as to how one might maintain one’s well being during a period of time notorious for its sustained assault upon bodily health.

Taken collectively, these recommendations as to how best to keep your house healthy this holiday season will go a long towards benefiting individual and familial health.

In-Home Exercise Equipment

Fitness is as much a matter of time as it is of discipline and intensity. As much as one might prefer the energizing effects of training in a polished and bustling gymnasium, unless said gymnasium happens to be within somersaulting distance of one’s home, the odds of making it on a routine basis during the holiday season are somewhere in the range of zero. This unfortunate logistical consideration is often employed as an (admittedly understandable) excuse for foregoing exercise altogether when shopping, baking, wrapping, and traveling are collectively dominating one’s calendar.

That said, one need not engage in an hour+ long gymnasium training session each calendar day of every calendar week in order to keep the holiday pounds at a comfortable distance. Instead, a few pieces of in-home exercise equipment will allow for one to build quick, suitably intensive fitness regimens into the calendar without impinging overly much upon the aforementioned holiday-specific priorities. Whether a collapsible rowing machine or a first-rate treadmill, the convenience of in-home fitness equipment will render one’s house remarkably healthy.

Limit Leftovers

Food during the holidays is traditionally prepared in massive quantities, shared in ways consistent with the spirit of the season, and stored as much for the sake of novelty as for genuine desire to consume normally hot foods in cold fashion days later. However, the foods which ascend to that coveted leftover status tend to be those least ideal for routine ingestion.

Pies, ham, stuffing (which is essentially ambrosia), gravy-doused potatoes, and so on; these take a heavy enough toll on the body during the first round—treating oneself to a second helping is dooming one’s body to months of recovery via exercise and fasting. Head this potential problem off at the pass and limit your leftovers. Refrigeration space will be a secondary benefit.

Shop Responsibly

Bingeing temptations are often overwhelming during the holiday season. So, binge within reason (if such a thing can be said to be possible), and keep the pantries, shelves, and refrigerator stocked with as much in the way of healthy snacks and nutritious alternatives to sweets and culinary indulgences as your storage space permits.

A vegetable platter, a bottle of sugar-free fruit juice, a few cups of Greek yogurt—these will not please the taste buds in the way a slice of glazed ham might, but they’ll suppress the appetite to an extent while providing one’s organism with vitamins and energizing nutrients to ensure a healthier holiday season than a diet consisting solely of pie would allow. Not to mention, even nutrition-dense foods are being enriched via seasonal flavorings. They may well prove an attractive alternative all around.

Learn more about keeping your home healthy during the holidays and the rest of the year by connecting with our team of health and wellness experts at A New Me!