If there's one thing you should do this winter during the festivities and holiday season it should be focusing on setting yourself up for 2017! With the influx in calories you're going to be able to enjoy, not only you will be able to build more muscle, you'll be able to develop a stronger metabolism going forward which makes managing your nutrition much easier. The reality is I see so many people making dieting very hard for themselves by failing to build their metabolism properly. I'm going to explain how you go about doing this now... 

Your metabolism will be governed by:

1) level of muscle mass 

2) level of activity 

3) calorie intake 

4) genetics 

5) age (hormonal health) 

The more muscle you carry the higher your metabolism is going to run, due to the increase in metabolically active tissue you're carrying. With that said, it is in your interests to build more muscle this winter season in order to make dieting easier next year. Obviously you're going to look better for doing this as well.

However, the main thing you need to focus on which will also help you build muscle is increasing your calorie intake the right way! This isn't about just eating lots of food without any method or strategy. It's about tracking your calories carefully and gradually building that number week by week, whilst remaining fairly lean. What this does is help you reach your calorie ceiling before you start to spill over and gain unwanted fat. You might look in the same condition but be able to consume an extra 1,000 calories a day for instance, which means that when it comes to dieting all of a sudden your metabolism is firing and you have lots of room to make adjustments without feeling hungry, or losing energy. 

This is what smart nutrition is really all about, making it do as much of the hard work for you as possible so that you're not unnecessarily struggling down the line for what you've done 6 months previously. This is something I always ask my new clients, what have they eaten like for the last 6 months because it matters. It will give me an indication on where their metabolism is at this point in time based on what they've already done.

Start building your calories and increase your activity levels this Christmas so that you're able to consume more whilst sustaining reasonable condition! You'll grow, become stronger and ultimately make dieting a whole lot easier for you in 2017!