COMMUNITY: Workout, but enjoy Thanksgiving

Editor's note: Adam Rees is founder of GRIT GYM, a gym based on results, creating a culture and lifestyle of performance, strength, health and freedom to live life on your own terms. Rees attended Wartburg, worked under nationally recognized strength coach Matt McGettigan at ISU and is generally a glutton for information and improvement in all forms.

We do some funny things.

We obsess about change but don't. We ask for more responsibility, but don't take on our own. We're over weight, but only concern ourselves with nutrition on the holidays.

This seems silly to me.

There's a statistic thrown around that the average American will gain 15 pounds over the holiday season. I don't know where that came from, but I know statistics are easily manipulated and extremely misleading. Unless you can look at the study and know how to read the science, it's probably not worth reading or trusting.

Here's some good advice this holiday season in terms of exercise and nutrition. Workout to get strong, then go have fun (dance and play) and you'll cover all your bases. If you don't exercise, I suggest you start. Here's a list of exercises that almost anyone can benefit from at home:

• Lunge: Hold the bottom of a lunge position, without the knee touching, work up to 60 second per leg

• 1-leg glute bridge: Lay on your back and push your butt as high as you can

• Air squats: Butt back and it goes below knees (that this is hard are the knees is a myth), knees out (away from each other), chest up, knees should go slightly in front of toes (yep, knees behind toes is another myth), neck packed (throwing your head back is yet also a myth)

• Prone T: Lay face down, forehead on floor, lift arms off ground making a ‘T' and emphasize them going as wide as possible (hands as far away from each other as you can)

• Don't do pushups: I have yet to see one proper pushup without training and the likelihood you need more pressing is extremely low. Places claiming to get you to 100 pushups are absurd. They literally are advertising that they will teach poor technique and help you tear up your shoulder.

• Don't do Olympic lifts: That'd be like playing football to get in shape. Even football players don't play football to get in shape. They train for strength first. If you have some weights, do bent-over rows. Your form will probably be brutal, but try to keep a packed shoulder and it's a good to hold for a 3-second count at top and bottom. Stick out your chest, flatten your back, pull your ribs toward your hips (not excessively), let the load of your upper body and weight in your hands be supported by your butt and hamstrings. If you feel it all in your back then you're doing it wrong.

Stop obsessing about how much you're going to eat on today out the entire year.

• Start by making small changes throughout the year, week by week.

• Most of our issue today is ingest without enjoyment. The solution is to take the time to taste and experience your food and you'll probably eat less and feel better.

• You don't get fat from one meal, you get fat from the day in, day out grind that leaves you wanting to continually escape so you eat with emotion, boredom and validation. This is silly and feeds an addictive cycle.

Have fun this holiday season. Drink the eggnog, dip into the gravy, indulge in the cheesy potatoes. It's one day out of 365. Go have fun.

• Contact Rees at Adam@gritgym.com