Fitness fanatics can keep on top of their health goals but still relax and enjoy the festive period thanks to some top advice from a professional fitness expert.

Steve Ahern, the personal trainer for online healthy food retailer MuscleFood.com, has revealed some useful tips for keeping sight of fitness goals, whilst still being able to enjoy the festivities with family and friends.

It’s easy to ditch the healthy eating and wave goodbye to the gym during the winter when it’s cold and dark outside, particularly as we edge closer to Christmas and the temptation of booze, snacks and calorific meals are lurking around every corner.

By being more mindful of what’s going in your mouth, and optimising workouts to get the most out of the limited time available to exercise, health buffs will be able to keep their fitness goals in sight throughout the entire festive period.

The MuscleFood.com PT also stresses the importance of simply staying active, keeping moving, no matter what it is you’re doing, and using this time of year as a good opportunity to try out something new, like ice skating.

Steve commented: “There’s always little snacks lying around over Christmas – tubs of chocolates that seem bottomless, packets of rich cheeses clogging up the fridge, and left-over food from calorific dinners.

“It’s so easy to just sit on the sofa, put on the Christmas films and snack away day after day with friends and family, justifying it by saying, ‘I’m allowed, it’s Christmas time!’

“But by simply being more mindful and setting ourselves achievable goals, the festivities don’t have to be so detrimental to our personal health and fitness objectives.

“Set realistic goals to simply maintain your fitness, rather than getting caught up with progression. Give your body and mind some stress-free time, as the festive period can add a lot of stress and worry anyway, and you should feel like exercise relieves stress, rather than adds to it.

“Whatever you do, just keep moving and keep enjoying the festivities along the way.”

Here are Steve’s six key tips for keeping sight of fitness goals over Christmas:

Be mindful

Christmas is the time for relaxing and loosening up a little, so there’s definitely room for some treats, but try and limit yourself to how much ‘loosening up’ you do exactly.

Do you have to be delving into the chocolate box every time? And do you really need to eat to the point of complete fullness, when you’re almost fit to burst? Using the ‘Christmas’ excuse will only suffice up to a certain point before your health and fitness starts to suffer.

Optimise workouts

This time of year, is all about fun and parties, and that’s great! But this also means that your free time to exercise will likely take a hit due to all the commitments in your personal life and engagements on the social calendar.

There’s no doubt that the majority of people won’t be able to train as often as they’d like to, so it’s important to take advantage of the free time you do have available, even if it’s just an hour or two a couple of times a week.

Maybe you can only get to the gym or go for a run twice per week and your sessions won’t last as long – that’s OK, just try to make your time count. Try out some high intensity exercise like a HIIT workout which can burn around 10-15 calories per minute, or attend a boxercise or spin class which can burn over 700 calories an hour – they can be fun too!

Try something new

With the New Year creeping just around the corner, now is a fantastic time to enjoy working out by trying something new.

If you’ve walked past any flyers at the gym or in shop windows advertising exercises classes like boxing, yoga, or even cross fit, and thought ‘that sounds fun’, now is the time to try it out!

Ice skating is a fantastic, festive activity that you can do with the whole family which you may not get a chance to do any other time of the year. You can burn anything between 300 – 600 calories during 30 minutes of skating too, which is a great incentive.

Get a workout buddy

Having a workout buddy is a fantastic idea. You will make each other accountable, spur each other on, and it’s a good way to force you both to get up, out the house and train when the other person doesn’t want to. Very simply, but very effective.

Don’t shy away from video games

If you still opt for virtual reality over good, old fashioned board games at Christmas then so be it! Just try playing more physical games on Nintendo Wii, like tennis or martial arts.

Even better, use this as a little tester before trying them out in real life.

Keep moving!

One of the best pieces of advice is just to keep moving. Walking just 15 minutes per day isn’t a huge ask but it can burn around 250 calories if you do it every day for a week, whereas walking for 30 minutes per day can burn around 600 calories per week! Plus, the fresh air and switch off time during such a hectic period can do you the world of good.

Maybe you have to wake up a little earlier, but that’s what happens when fitness is a part of your life, and it’s a very small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things.