So it is that time of year again!! Halloween was just the beginning, now comes all the Thanksgiving Parties, the Christmas Parties, and too top it all off The New Year Parties. It is the Holiday Season, and if you are not equipped with an eating game plan you are going to get blind sided by about 5 to 8 pounds of extra weight. 5-8 pounds is how much weight people usually pack on during this time of the season. That is why you need a game plan to help you through this glutenous season.
Lets face it, parties and family gatherings are fun…well at least parties are. But when you mix fun with delicious food, then you have a recipe for a weight loss disaster. So you need to switch up your game plan a little bit, most the year you are probably focusing on how to lose weight, but during the holiday season you need to focus on how to not gain weight. Weight management! The holidays are way to fun to dismiss, and it will only cause you frustration and disappointment if you decide not to eat these delicious foods. You main goal should be to keep your weight stable through these times.
Don’t get me wrong, if you are strong enough to get through the holiday season and still lose weight, then go for it!! But the average person usually throws all their discipline away during the holiday season, and binges on eggnog, turkey, mash potatoes, and pie. I am trying to give the average person a new way to look at things, a strategy to their Holiday Eating.
Here are a few Holiday Eating tips:
- Continue to workout. Okay, so the first tip has nothing to do with eating, but this is very important, you need to stay active during this time of the season. Resist the urge to go into hibernation.
- Don’t Starve Yourself. What I mean by these is…do not starve yourself before you go to a party or a family dinner. Make sure to eat little snacks before you arrive to the party to help curb your cravings. Eating small snacks can help you from cutting loose.
- Portions. Eat rational portions, you do not need to fill your plate up so full it needs a wide load sign to get through the crowd. Your stomach is not meant to eat that much food.
- Eat Slowly. Allow your body to know it has eaten food. So many times we inhale the first plate of food, and then after the second or third serving our bodies finally catch up, and we feel terrible. Eating slowly will help your body know when it is full and when you need to stop eating.
- Know The Consequences. You know that 5 to 8 pounds you have been working to get off all year, well if you gain it all back, you will have to lose it all over again the next year. It is a terrible cycle to get in.
Hopefully these Holiday Eating Tips can prevent you from gaining weight during the holiday season.
It all starts with your head, if your head is correct it is easier for your body to fall into position. So make sure you are not looking down. I blame treadmills for the bad habit of looking down, because when people run on a treadmill they always tend to look down at the clock, their distance, or maybe they are looking to see how many calories they have burned. For whatever reason it is, it is teaching bad habits. There are even certain treadmills that have TV’s installed that help people get in the bad habit of looking down. We need to look ahead, face forward, look to the horizon. When you keep your eyes ahead it will align your head with your spine, and you will help your body to last longer during the workout.
You cannot target fat loss to one specific area on your body, it is very important to do abdominal workouts (which we will talk about), but it cannot be the only thing you do. You need to incorporate cardiovascular training, weight lifting, and interval training. You need to turn your body into a fat burning machine, and you do that by raising your lean muscle mass, because muscles burns fat. You also need to have a healthy diet, there are certain foods that can help you get your sexy flat abs, like foods with protein, and foods that are either whole grain or whole wheat. But let get to some of the reasons why strong flat abs are important, other than just looking good.
Yes, great looking abs go further than just skin deep, it’s not all about looking good. There are many health benefits to strengthening your core that will help you live a long and healthy life. If you are experiencing back pain, most the time it is because of the baggage you are carrying up front. Your back is supporting all that weight called your belly, or beer belly. Strengthening your abs will also help you with everyday activities. Just think about all the movements we do, twisting, bending, pushing, and pulling, we engage our core far more than we realize, and if we had a strong core than we would be less likely to injure ourselves. Belly fat has also been related to heart disease, the fat that surrounds our midsections is said to be the most dangerous fat for our hearts.
So now you have no excuse on why you should ever make these mistakes again! Now you know, and like the old G.I. Joe public announcements used to say “Knowing is half the battle.”
These are just five more reasons why we need to have healthy sleep; our lives could be at stake. What are some of the reasons why people are not getting enough sleep? Unless you have a physical condition, most people do not get healthy sleep because they are stress or have a lot on the mind. Its kind of a catch 22, because your day is filled with stress from your job, paying bills, sitting in traffic, your mother in law, which are causing you to not get any sleep. But at the same time the lack of sleep is causing your stress to elevate. So it is important to settle yourself down before you head off to bed, maybe do an activity to get your mind off of the daily grind.
The First Phase – You pretty much eat normal size portions of food, but you will eliminate all carbohydrates. This will probably be the toughest phase, to get through, because a lot of your really good foods have carbohydrates in them. This strict first phase lasts for two weeks, and in this two weeks, you will eat lean meats. Turkey, chicken, shellfish are all accepted in this first stage, some selected vegetables, nuts and low fat cheese are also accepted in this first phase of the South Beach Diet.
So does the Atkins Diet work? Yes, it actually does work. But if the Atkins Diet works, why is there so much controversy over it? Let me tell you why I do not like the Atkins Diet. The Atkins Diet is great for short-term weight loss, but bad for a lifetime of health. By eliminating foods with carbohydrates, you are limiting yourself to all the wonderful nutrients that help your body. With the Atkins Diet you pretty much only eat foods with protein, which includes steak, chicken, eggs, bacon, and turkey, and even though this sounds great, they are also high in saturated fat. So even though you might lose 20 to 30 pounds, you will actually be doing damage to yourself in the long run.
It is no secret that most people are overweight, especially here in America. Even children are overweight. Being overweight mostly happens because of two things, an unhealthy diet and little or no exercise. There is a reason why diabetes and heart disease is affecting the U.S. like an epidemic, and it is because of those two reasons. Most of us already know that exercising is good for losing weight, and can help you avoid heart disease, but what are some other benefits that exercising has to offer.
Remember, exercising is not just for people who are overweight. Exercising is for everyone, no matter what your weight is or how old you are. If you have the mental capacity are physically able to do some type of exercise, than I encourage you to take care of your body. Believe it or not, exercising can be a lot of fun; you just got to find out what you like to do. Do not let laziness sneak into your life, because you will regret it later on in your life.
So what are some of the benefits that swimming provides for you? Swimming is great for your ligaments and joints, but unlike running where there is a lot of wear and tear on your joints, swimming has no impact. Swimming also has incredible health benefits for your heart and lungs. I like to hike a lot, but nothing has prepared my lungs and heart better for a hike like swimming has. The endurance that you get from swimming is amazing, thus making swimming an incredible exercise. Swimming also provides a full body workout. Your whole body is engaged in every stroke and kick, targeting every major muscle group of your body. The water provides resistance for your muscles, so you do get a great workout.
I want to talk to you about Interval Training. Interval Training contains both high bursts of energy and recovery times. There are many different ways people use interval training, some people do long bursts of energy and short recovery times, some people do shorter bursts of energy and longer recovery times, both are affective. No matter which form of interval training you chose, the goal is always to get your heart rate up with high bursts of energy and then bring your heart rate down with the recovery time, do it over and over again for around 20-30 minutes.
Which brings us to our second way to burn fat quickly. Muscle training! I am not talking about getting huge and bulky, so if your a woman or a man afraid to bulk up? Do not worry. Resistance training is a very important key to burning fat, because building lean muscle is the fastest way to burn fat. You do not have to use heavy weight or even use weights at all. Resistance training involves chin-ups, push-ups, lunges and squats; all those exercises can be done without weights. If you do end up using weights, you do not have to pick heavy weights. Chose weights that you can control, many people try to whip out reps like they were in a race…but slow and steady wins this race. For example, going down with a bicep curl is just as important as going up with a curl. There are times for pumping out reps, but slow and controlled repetitions will help your body burn more fat during and even after the workout is finished.
