It’s that time of year again to check in with Mr. and Mrs. Claus to see what’s happening in their health and wellness endeavors at the North Pole. Once again, Mrs. Claus is working with all the new health and wellness trends. I am sure poor old Santa has been put through his paces.

The North Pole workshops have seen many changes over the years, and now they are upping their game with two new full-time staffers, a certified health coach and an on-site certified personal trainer for Santa and Team Elf.

Mrs. Claus has certainly done her homework on the benefit of corporate wellness programs. Making toys for all the little girls and boys is hard, demanding work so keeping the teams at the North Pole in tip-top health is a great way to lower their healthcare cost and take care of their staff’s health and wellness. That Mrs. Claus is a caring and progressive thinker!

Since Mrs. Claus is always in need of a little help keeping Santa on point with his diet and exercise, what a better duo to take on the challenge than with a permanently staffed health coach and a certified fitness trainer.

Setting the stage for foundational health and wellness takes a significant understanding of all aspects of health and wellness and bringing on a professional makes a lot of sense. A certified health coach can be a teacher, advisor, and mentor across the full spectrum of healthy lifestyle changes which will undoubtedly take Santa and Team Elf to new levels of wellness.

Applying health and wellness around great nutrition, mindful meditation and proper levels of fitness activities will give the North Pole staff much-needed structure, accountability, and core competencies in health and wellness. These shifts in a more fit and healthy group will encourage team motivation and overall morale along with supplying boundless energy in their personal lives. I have heard Team Elf may even send a contingent of athletes to the Winter X Games in Aspen in January 2019 looking for gold in the Snowboard Big Air segment!

Since both Santa and Mrs. Claus love their free weight training and intense exercise regimen, they decided to share by bringing on a certified personal trainer. Now as you know, Mrs. Claus has been Santa’s personal trainer for many years, but taking on the whole North Pole staff was a bit much for her with all of her other duties.

It was not easy to find the right fit in a certified personal trainer. But Mrs. Claus found Alfy, the pro-fitness elf who is one of the best certified personal trainers in the world. Alfy has trained and worked with some of the best Winter Olympic athletes in the world. She ranks at the top of IFBB competitions in the world. Her 4 a.m. daily warm-up is running Santa’s reindeer on their new regular ten-mile forest course.

Santa gets his training started by 6 a.m. and during the day, Mrs. Claus is still keeping Santa on task to keep up his 10,000 plus steps a day. Mrs. Claus has reduced her Qigong sessions to 30-minutes for the staff at lunchtime, not wanting to overdo it. Following Qigong, it is encouraged that Team Elf have some quiet time for meditation and mindfulness. These moments of downtime do seem to keep the hardworking group cheery and bright during this stressful time of the year.

After hours nutrition classes that have included vegan, vegetarian, and primal eating has been expanding to include Ketogenic eating which works well for both the staff that wants to improve their body composition and those elf athletes that want to lean up for competitions.

No matter which nutrition the team wants to learn and use, Mrs. Claus stresses the importance of whole raw and organic foods. This last year, the North Pole kitchens made an effort to stop using unhealthy processed foods to embrace a healthy meal plan.

As in past years, Santa always looks forward to a few cookies along with his worldwide route.

Mrs. Claus also hopes there will be more fruit and fewer cookies sitting next to the Christmas tree, but she knows Santa does love those sugar cookies. May you all have a very Merry Christmas and a very healthy New Year!

Judd Jones is a director for The Hagadone Corporation and certified health coach. For information, go online to jhanawellness.com.