Do I lose fitness when I'm on Vacation? (Nov 2016)

Before you decide to step away from your Pilates, gym or other fitness studio over the upcoming holidays, wouldn't you love to know home much time you have before your fitness, strength, and flexibility start on a downward trend?  There's nothing worse than working hard all year only to realize that you've lost a lot of what you worked for all year long!

Now, here's the thing...no one can quote you an exact time period!  However, the general consensus is about two weeks before most people begin to see some loss in strength, flexibility and overall fitness.

Of course, a lot of variables go into determining how long you personally can go before you'd see a loss.  How difficult were your workouts?  How often did you do them?  Are you consistent? What type of overall shape are you in?  How are/were your eating habits? Do you do weight/resistance training or just cardio?

Takes Pilates training as an example:

If you are very consistent and take three or more classes per week, that work stays. Pilates involves critical strength training, deep muscle toning, and stretching. Building muscle is a key factor...as the increases in your muscles take a long time to deteriorate. Increased muscle mass also keeps your metabolism at a higher resting rate, so even if you Netflix binge the whole holiday, you are still burning more calories than if you hadn't built all that muscle. I've found that the first area that can change if your stop your workouts is in the butt area...and I've seen that can happen after around two weeks (again, dependent on how fit you are).  I've also found that it takes a full month or so (as long as you are not overeating) to see your waistline really start lose its shape. That being said, many people report feeling less fit almost immediately.  They also report that going longer than around a week without Pilates causes their hamstrings, back, and neck to scream for their Pilates exercises!

So...if you are planning on taking a vacation from exercise this holiday, try to limit it to under 2 weeks, or see if you can work some exercise into it this year.  Your body will thank you for it and you'll feel great that you made it through another holiday in incredible shape!