How To Avoid Gaining Holiday Weight Over Christmas
Holiday weight gain is a real problem around Christmas, so you need the right tools to fight it back. These 7 tips will definitely help.
Christmas is a time of fun and celebration, but it also tends to be when we put on the most holiday weight without intending to do so.
Nevertheless, there are things you can do to avoid this outcome. Here are a few tips to follow to keep the pounds off this holiday season.
Tips To Avoid Holiday Weight Gain
Here are a few tips that will help you skip the holiday weight gain this year:
1. Don’t Start Early
It’s easy to see all the decorations in the stores and get into the holiday spirit. That’s all fine and good, but if you let that encourage you into overeating from Christmas Eve (or even earlier) right through to the New Year, you’ll have much to regret.
The last thing you can afford to do is start eating Christmas meals and extra treats that exceed your regular calories halfway through December. It will see you reach the beginning of the next year with excess weight to shift and feeling heavy when walking around. That’s no fun at all!
2. Avoid Negative Talk
One approach people take with eating too much is by dismissing the importance of being mindful of the extra calories. They say, “I’ll fix it in January anyway“.
This gives a free license to eat and drink without any regard for the consequences of our actions. Don’t be this person.
It’s even truer if you were already on a diet plan when you hit ‘pause’ for the Christmas holiday season. It becomes an even taller mountain to climb.
Building up enough momentum to sustain you through the slow early months of weight loss is more difficult too.
3. Make Exercise A Part Of Your Holiday Season
When you know that you’re consuming more calories, it’s important to offset that with a complementary increase in regular exercise.
The one thing you don’t want to be during Christmas is sedentary because you’re then eating more than normal and moving less. That’s the opposite of what you should be doing.
Make it a point to get some fresh air by going for a walk several times a day during the holiday period. It might only be a quick 20-minute stroll around the block while the rest of the family is busy doing other things, but every little bit helps.
If that’s repeated several times a day, no single walk will feel arduous or cause an upset stomach if you’ve eaten recently. But it sure adds up to some nice calorie burn at the end of the day.
4. Avoid Late Night Snacking And Drinking
It’s tempting to hoover up turkey leftovers and drink some late night eggnog. After all, the turkey is just on a convenient plate in the refrigerator and someone’s got to finish it. Right? Wrong…
When it’s too late to go outside for a walk, it’s a bad idea to eat late in the evening. It leaves too little time for your body to burn off the extra calories. Many of those calories turn to fat stores.
Have a light supper and call it a day.
5. Get Help Losing Weight If Necessary
If you’re wanting to lose weight but you’ve failed in the past or know you need some assistance, seek out a good weight-loss knowledge center.
A weight loss center can provide different medical procedures to help with serious weight problems that are impinging on a happy, healthy life. These include gastric bypass surgery, gastric balloon procedures, and lap-band operations.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help if that’s what you need. That way, you can make the next year a great year for losing weight, getting fit, and feeling healthier than ever before.
6. Skip Having Seconds
Unlike at other times of the year, it’s common at Christmas time to clear your plate and then be offered seconds. This is seen as being a good host.
Sometimes people feel like it would be rude to refuse seconds when they’re offered. A host might even get a bit pushy or insistent about it. It happens!
Hold firm that you don’t take seconds during the holidays. When you say, “I don’t” and not “I can’t” it cuts off the possibility of any wriggle room in your decision.
Otherwise, when you announce that “you can’t“, it’s quite likely the host will respond with, “Sure, you can!”
7. Play Games With The Kids
Playing games with the kids when they ask is a great way to join in the fun while also burning some extra calories.
When getting together as a family, there’s often plenty of young kids trying to find things to occupy themselves. They invent fun games to play indoors and in the garden.
Be the relative who doesn’t say no to playing with them and get more genuine enjoyment at Xmas time too.
As long as you follow a strategy during the Christmas holidays, you can avoid piling on the pounds and being filled with regret.
It only takes a few tweaks to put you on the right path, to avoid holiday weight gain and to end up looking like Santa Clause in the New Year.
