During the holiday and festive period which runs from the end of the month of November to the beginning of the following January, we usually get food gift items like cookies and treats like cheese balls as holiday gifts and this will inevitably result in lots of people gaining lots of extra weight during the festive period.
It is therefore not surprising to note that research carried out at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Centre on Aging has revealed that 51% of yearly weight gain amongst Americans occurs during the festive and holiday season; this excessive weight gain that occurs during the winter period is a significant contributor to the epidemic of obesity that we are presently experiencing in America. Also, excessive weight gain during the holiday period is usually not easily lost during the summer or spring months.
Therefore if you want to remain fit and trim, you must take extra measures to avoid gaining extra weight during the holiday and you can make use of the following tips to make sure that you do not derail off your weight loss efforts during the holiday period:
1-Avoiding Temptation
For you to be able to avoid the temptation of indulging in foods that can derail your eating plan during the festive period, you can make use of the following points:
-Make sure that you are really hungry before you eat:
When you are presented with food always ask yourself this question, "Am I really hungry or am I just craving for the delicious and sweet smelling food that has been placed before me?"
Just because you have been presented with food doesn't always mean that you should eat the food; you should learn to politely reject food when you are not really hungry.
-Try not to skip breakfast:
If you skip breakfast, you are merely setting yourself up to become overly hungry during your lunch time, and this will most likely make you to overeat and overindulge yourself at lunch.
So you should always try to eat light breakfast meals that are rich in fibre content to keep you fairly full till lunchtime so that you become less prone to overeating during lunchtime.
-Eat lots of healthy foods everyday:
If you can eat enough healthy foods every day, you will be less prone to the temptation of looking for extra food to eat; you should have at least 2 servings of fruits and 3 servings of vegetables every day. You can serve these vegetables as crudités which you dip into vinaigrette or other dipping sauce; you can also blend these vegetables into nutritious smoothies.
-Make use of a food journal:
It is important that you keep a food journal so that you can monitor your food intake more closely.
-Avoid stocking seasonal treats in your house:
If you are not careful, you will just discover that your house will be full of junk seasonal foods during the festive period and once you have these "sweet foods" easily within your reach, it will be very difficult for you to resist the temptation of eating these foods.
2-Take special care when you are attending parties
It is inevitable that you will have to attend certain parties during the festive periods and you must take extra steps to make sure you do not derail off your dieting guidelines when you are attending these parties. Some of the extra steps that you have to take at these parties include:
-You should plan ahead for these parties:
When you want to attend parties hosted by your friends, you can prepare a low fat healthy food alternative like a vegetable based dish that is full of natural flavours. You can steam these vegetables slightly so as to make them more colourful and you can season them with lemon juice and dill, or you can season them with apple cider and cinnamon. Do not mix them with butter, or cream, or marshmallows as these will only add unhealthy fat to your vegetable meal.
If you go to your parties with a bowl of these nutritious vegetables, you will be rest assured that you and the other health conscious people at the party will have at least one healthy food to eat.
Take a good look at all the different types of foods that you have been offered before you decide on the healthy food options that you like to eat; you do not have to eat all the food options set before you.
-Do not go to the buffet table more than once:
You should stay away from the buffet table once you have filled your plate to avoid nibbling.
-Take only small amounts of foods
Do not serve yourself with large amounts of food just because there is a lot of food that is available for eating.
-Avoid eating fried foods like cheese cubes, Buffalo wings etc
Let vegetables and fruit salads make up half of your plate while you fill the other half of your plate with low calorie healthy foods like shrimps, lobsters and other sea foods. Do not take more than 3 ounces of meat and avoid gravy totally.
-Keep off alcohol
Instead of taking champagne and other alcoholic drinks, you should drink iced water, or fruit juice, or vegetable juice cocktail mixed with a bit of hot sauce and a stick of celery.
3- Do not forget to exercise when you are on vacation
Do not allow all the party commitments and functions that you have to attend to choke all the time that you should have separated for exercise during the holiday period. If you maintain a high level of exercise during the festive period, you will be able to reduce your stress levels which increases during this period and you will experience more internal energy.
So, you can go for a brisk walk, or you can go hiking in the woods, or you can engage in ice skating; all these fun filled exercises help you to burn off excess calories.
If so click here to sign up for a free 7 days fat loss diet e-course that will explain how you can start off your effective fat loss diet.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charles_D_Moody
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