How to Avoid Weight Gain During the Holiday Seasons
The seasonal holidays (like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc) are often seen as a great excuse for families and friends to get together for a bit of guilt free indulgence. Unfortunately, for people who are trying to lose weight they can represent a minefield of temptation, one which often sees many weaker willed dieters undoing all the progress they have made in the weeks and months leading up to the holiday.
In the winter months it can be particularly hard. People spend more time indoors being inactive, which means they aren’t burning off excess calories as they would have done during the summer when coincidental physical activity would have taken care of the problem. Another issues is that as the weather starts to grow colder, our bodies automatically start telling us to store more fat to keep warm, whilst at the same time heavy winter foods and sweets come out of hibernation to creep their way onto the menu. These factors combined can make the winter holidays particularly painful for people trying to lose (or maintain) weight.
Making sure you keep a positive attitude, whilst being mindful of what you eat and exercising strong willpower is probably the best advice anyone can give about how to avoid putting on some extra pounds during the holiday season. If you are already on a diet, it’s as simple as making sure you stick to it. Your body may well experience cravings (something which is probably not new to anyone on a diet), but keeping yourself in check by mentally saying NO is far more effective than any could ever hope to be.
If you are going to indulge in unhealthy holiday foods (lets face it everyone does every now and again), it is even more important to keep tight control over yourself. Obviously cakes, pastries and sweets of all kinds should be kept to a bare minimum, but if you must indulge in these kinds of food then never have the container sitting with you when eating, take one and leave it at that.
When eating at home only allow yourself healty size food portions, when out either ask your server for smaller portions or at the very least stop eating once your hunger is gone instead of when you are feeling full. Exercising self control will go a very long way towards making sure you don’t pile on the pounds during the holidays.
Finally if you don’t normally attend a gym, becoming a member for the winter months (to compensate for the normal drop off in physical activity) is a great way to keep control of your figure (as long as you actually go).
This is a guest post by Jessy Troy who blogs on Sudden Weight Loss and Diets Plans
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