Holiday weight gain, Tips for how to reach your weight loss goals over the winter holidays, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, and stay on your diet.
The winter holidays mean family, friends, and sometimes unnecessary weight gain. With a little eggnog there and a missed workout here, beloved winter holidays such as Thanksgiving or Christmas can wreak havoc on your diet and weight loss plan.
Holiday Weight Gain: How to Stay on Your Diet Over the Holidays
Don’t worry. Listed below are some useful tips for continuing your diet and losing weight over this stressful holiday season. These practical pointers can help you stay on track and be bikini ready by summer.
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Be Prepared to Stay on Your Diet over the Holidays
Delicious delicacies like iced sugar cookies and zesty cheese logs are lurking around every corner waiting to sabotage your diet and ruin your hard-earned weight loss. Be prepared to combat these diet saboteurs.
Bring your own tasty and healthy snacks for Christmas parties to make sure you will have something healthy to munch on. Before Christmas parties, make sure to eat a small, healthy meal or snack so as not to stuff yourself on less healthy items when you arrive.
Find more healthy versions of your favorite holiday desserts or other popular family dishes. There are plenty of recipes out there for much healthier versions of popular holiday favorites. Maybe find a new, healthier take on a traditional holiday dessert.
For example, a baked apple filled with heart-healthy oats and fiber filling walnuts is a healthier choice than the more traditional apple pie with ice cream.
Make these new healthy foods or healthier versions of family holiday favorites part of your holiday traditions. Establish a new holiday tradition of eating healthy foods.
Learning to Say “No” is Key to Staying on Your Diet over the Holidays
Most dieters have had this scenario. There we are confronted with a favorite elderly relative or maybe a good co-worker bearing tempting holiday goodies. They offer us a festive treat and we accept the goodie, more out of politeness and the fear of offending their kind offering than any real desire to consume the unhealthy item.
Remember, you are not on a short-term diet. You are on a lifestyle change. A lifestyle change means establishing a pattern of healthy habits that you can keep for the rest of your life.
Learning to say no to family members or friends when they come bearing tempting, unhealthy foods can be challenging, especially if they are not on your new healthy lifestyle change. Just be as polite as possible in your decline. Offers of food can sometimes be seen as a way of showing affection. Let them know you appreciate and love them, even though you are declining their gift.
Again, this can be incredibly difficult to do, but remember your long-term health is important, and your family and friends need to get used to your new healthy lifestyle.
Managing Stress is Key to Weight Loss over the Holidays
The holidays aren’t only sitting around the fire roasting chestnuts. Black Friday shopping sprees, Christmas parties, decorating, wrapping gifts, visiting relatives, can mean a lot of added stress and sometimes added inches.
Stress can be a key contributing factor to weight gain. Stress can release hormones slowing down your metabolism, make you lose your needed sleep, or more likely to binge or eat unwisely.
Over the holidays, make sure to manage your stress. Whether by meditation, taking a short walk, or calling a cheerful loved one or friend, keep your stress in check to help you stay healthy and stay on your diet.
Make Being Active Part of Your Family Traditions to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain and Shed Pounds
Remember, achieving long-term weight loss isn’t about sticking temporarily to a diet. It’s about establishing a healthy lifestyle that you can keep forever. So start adding some healthy family traditions to your holidays. Instead of only watching the football game on Thanksgiving, go outside and have a family game instead.
Take a long evening walk to look at Christmas decorations and lights on Christmas Eve. Play an energetic game like charades with your family. Do activities that are fun and enjoyable to family members, but promote your new healthy lifestyle.
Stay on Your Diet, but Still Relax and Enjoy the Holidays
Remember to enjoy yourself and relax. The holidays are all about spending time with loved ones and enjoying yourself. Don’t give up your favorite holiday dessert, such as your grandmother’s pumpkin pie. Have a piece and enjoy. One day of straying from your diet isn’t going to ruin your weight loss goals forever.
Remember, maintaining a healthy weight comes from a long-term lifestyle change. So have and enjoy your favorite holiday treat, but be ready to do your usual early morning jog the next day.
