If time were travel and your destination the Isle of Regular Exercise, Thanksgiving to New Year's would be when your cabin cruiser enters the Bermuda Triangle. Preparation for the holidays and the subsequent social commitments create their own type of Devil's Triangle, which makes it quite possible for you to get lost at sea.

It's even more likely that your personal exercise vessel will experience turbulence when you enter these waters. But if it springs a leak and takes on some water (or some unwanted weight), don't abandon ship.Simply change course.There's always more than one way to reach the ocean of Good Health. Moreover, by surviving that stretch known as the Bermuda Triangle, you'll learn important things about your personal vessel.But enough of the seafaring metaphors.At this time of the year, the weather can be brutal and the parties can be plentiful - making the excuses multiple and your motivational minimal.The key to continuing to work out is to recognize all these changes and that they make other changes inevitable. Or, to borrow a profound proverb from the Far East, "make the pattern to break the pattern."Patterns, routines, habits: we need them to thrive - sometimes even to survive. They are essential for orderly living. But if you see them as permanent fixtures rather than temporary solutions, they can become counterproductive.Years ago in the winter, for instance, I would increase my time and intensity in the weight room and decrease my time and intensity riding the bicycle outside. Why? Riding in windy, frigid conditions with the turns littered with cinders dropped during the last snow dictated that.But because I was breaking what I saw as the optimal pattern, I'd have less than the maximal motivation on those outside rides. And then one year, I decided to employ the make-the-pattern-to-break-the-pattern philosophy.Often professional cycling teams start each new season with a two-week training camp at a site with hilly terrain and a temperate climate. They don't ride super hard. They simply accumulate base miles to build up for the eventual intense rides.Just before our school district's 12-day Christmas vacation, I noticed that no snow was forecast. Sure, the temperatures weren't going to be the 60s and 70s that pros would experience in San Diego, Majorca, or the southern coast of France, but why couldn't I do my own type of training camp? Just ride day after day, take one day off in the middle, and see how many hours of saddle time I could accumulate?When the goal came to me, to ride 36 hours of saddle time in 12 days, so did a strong dose of motivation.So when bad weather hit on day seven, I just added extra layers of clothes and took pride in the fact that my cycling buddies stayed inside. And when it got icy on day 12, I quickly pedaled home, but the workout did not end. I hopped on the stationary cycle inside and rode until I reached the 36-hour mark.Now I know that sort of exercise is extreme, and it would only appeal to a very few, but it makes my point. By making a new pattern and breaking an old one, I got much more out of my workouts.Using my Christmas break as a training camp worked for about 15 years, and then I needed to break the pattern again. I found it tougher to find other cyclists willing to ride in the sometimes-brutal conditions - and as I hit my mid-50s I found it tougher to recover from so many long rides in a row.The pattern was no longer useful, so the breaking of it and making of another needed to occur again - even though it bothered me immensely to do so.Last year, I included more intensity, curtailed the total time, and allowed my body to tell me when it was best to get off the bike and into the weight room.So how can my story apply to you? Think about the upcoming holiday season, what happens to your workout routine as a result, and how you could make a new pattern that would appeal to you and keep you active.If you are always time-crunched during the holidays, accept that, cutback on exercise time, but add intensity. Reduce that 45-minute walk by half, for instance, but do it on that hill near your house that you always avoid because it's so steep.If you always seem to get sick during or after the holidays, recognize that, and cutback on exercise without adding extra intensity. Most people can usually reduce exercise time by half and - as long as they keep the same degree of intensity - keep the same level of fitness for eight to 12 weeks.What gets decreased, obviously, is your daily caloric requirement, so you'll have to eat less during an exercise reduction or experience a temporary gain of weight.