Welcome to day 2 of our #AdventAbs campaign – Northern Bootcamp’s plan to make sure you do enough and eat healthily enough in December to offset some of that partying!
We want you to have fun this December, but if you’ve been working hard to get in shape all year, it’d be a shame to throw it all away – follow our tips and you can have the best of both worlds, making sure you’re in great shape to hit January running.
Every day we’ll bring you an abs exercise to help keep that core strong, along with recipes, hints and tips to help stay in shape while you have fun this December. You can find our Day 1 entry here.
Recipe – Celeriac and parsnip bake
This is a a great, healthy Christmas side dish, just to a bit of balance to the Christmas day meal. Best of all, it doesn’t taste like a healthy option.
- 2 onions, thinly sliced
- small bunch thyme, leaves picked
- ¼ tsp mustard seeds, crushed
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 400ml chicken stock
- 1 celeriac, peeled and thinly sliced
- 500g parsnips, peeled and cut into thin rounds
Method
Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium-high heat, add the onions, thyme leaves, mustard seeds and 1 tbsp water, and cook for 10-15 mins. If the onions start to catch, add a splash more water. Once the onions are soft, add the vinegar and bubble for 1 min.
Meanwhile, bring the stock to the boil in a medium pan. Add the celeriac and parsnips, and simmer for 6 mins, stirring occasionally. Layer the vegetables with the onions in a large ovenproof dish. Pour over enough stock to come halfway up the vegetables, then bake for 30 mins until golden and cooked through.
#AdventAbs exercise day 2 – squats
Another nice and easy exercise – one that you can do while the adverts are on, or when you’ve got a spare five minutes. Visible, defined abs are hard to achieve, but by sticking to a good diet and making sure you have great core strength, you’ll get a toned stomach in no time.
Simply stand and, with your back straight, bend your knees until your are in a squatting position, then stand up again. Do this ten times (beginners), wait for one minute, then repeat. Do three sets in total.
Squats are one of those exercises that ‘gets you the next day’, so take care not to overdo it if you’re a beginner.
Day 1: Squats
Beginners: 3x 10 squats
Intermediate: 3x 20
Advanced: 3x 30 (with additional handheld weights if required)
Pro: 5x 30 seconds (with handheld weights if required)
