Bodybuilding Tip: Ben Pakulski Talks About Getting Your Abs During The Holidays!

Bodybuilding during the holidays can be a challenging endeavor to some of us. We all know what that means...

Parties, dinners, drinks with friends and those ever tempting delicious baked goods! Things that are not necessarily in line with your bodybuilding goals.

I know you are all expecting me to say "avoid them like the plague" as any good bodybuilding coach or trainer would say, but I say forget that! These holidays happen once a year, so unless you're training for a bodybuilding contest, like me, I say "go for it!"

But before you do, you better have a plan or you're going to find yourself 15 lbs heavier and needing to shop for bigger jeans on Boxing Day!

Bodybuilding Tricks to Getting Your Abs and Staying Lean Over the Holidays!

Here are the 6 things you should be doing as we approach what I call "festive holiday eating!"....

1) Follow a strict, low carb diet (0.33g/pound bodyweight) for 3 days leading up to "the big day". This will allow your body to deplete its energy stores, continue the fat burning process, and allow you to eat literally whatever you want and ensure your body will not store it as fat.

2) The first meal of the day must be carbohydrate free! This will ensure your body maintains controlled insulin levels throughout the day and will decrease the likelihood of you going insulin resistant (aka a fat storage frenzy!)

3) Exercise first thing in the morning. It doesn't have to be on an empty stomach, but that never hurts. Some bodybuilding training in the morning will kickstart your metabolism for the day and is yet another important step to ensuring proper carbohydrate utilization throughout the day.

4)When you wake up each morning, and before bed every night you must drink 1 full liter of water (ideally with lemon juice).

5) Eat your protein first. Putting the protein into your stomach first during a meal, will help as unconscious portion control as well as helping to slow down carbohydrate digestion.

6) Train the morning after! No matter how poopy you feel or how hung over you are, train the next morning. Help your body kickstart fat burning again, start the detoxification process, and get that blood flowing so your body can use all those amazing nutrients you just indulged in! It doesn't have to be intense, record breaking workouts. Just get something done. And I am talking about 40 minutes of work! Not 10-mins training and 30-min social time. Move at a slow pace if you have to, just keep moving!

Follow these few easy bodybuilding tricks and you will be well ahead of where you expected yourself to be heading into the New Year!

I hope you're all as excited for what 2012 has to bring as I am!

Set Big Goals.

Passion, Persistence, Holiday Abs!

About the Author
Ben Pakulski is an IFBB Pro Body Builder and has been honing his craft for the past 14 years. Not only that, but he’s a graduate of the University of Western Ontario, where he specialized in the study of Kinesiology and Biomechanics. That makes him extremely well versed in the field of muscle function and muscle movement. He’s a successful personal trainer, with celebrity clients and has been featured in many of the well-respected health and fitness magazines. Add in his work as a fitness coach and public speaker and you begin to see that Ben is passionate about improving both his own and the bodies of other people.