We’ve just survived the annual Holiday Season” – or, should we call it the annual “Eating Season”. If you find your pants fitting a bit tighter, you’re not alone. Americans consume an average of 619 additional calories per day between Thanksgiving and New Years Day. Adding to the problem is that during the same gluttonous period, workouts and sleep get scaled back. OK, now that we’ve identified the source of the weight gain, what is there to do about it? First, if you want to lose weight don’t completely overhaul your diet. Small changes are far more effective than radical revolutions. Next, read below for suggestions on how to peel back those holiday pounds efficiently and effectively.
Don’t Stop Eating
You need to eat to lose weight. Not eating actually lowers your metabolism. Also, it’s much easier to make smart, healthful food choices when you’re not starving.
Front-Load Your Calories
Consume more of your calories earlier in the day when you’re more likely to need them and use them. This will also help prevent overeating at night. Breakfast truly is the most important meal of the day for health and weight loss. Remember this old expression: breakfast like a king, dine like a prince and supper like a pauper. In fact, some of the most recent weight loss studies concluded that those who ate the biggest breakfasts with up to half of their total calories for the day had the greatest success with both losing weight and keeping it off. Also, don’t feel you have to stick with typical breakfast foods at breakfast and supper foods at supper. There’s nothing wrong with eating leftovers for breakfast and oatmeal and/or yogurt and fruit for dinner.
Brush Your Teeth
Brushing your teeth after meals will cue you to stop eating and therefore help you prevent mindless snacking – especially in the evening. If you’re not near your toothbrush – carry some sugarless gum with you – it can have the same effect.
Plan Ahead
Bring a healthy snack with you if don’t have time to stop for a meal. If you’re traveling in your car, carry a cooler with you and stock it with bottled water and healthy snacks such as fruit, nuts, plain yogurt, baby carrots, string cheese and whole grain crackers.
Beware of So-Called Healthy Food
Just because a packaged food is labeled “organic” or “low fat” or “trans fat-free” or even “gluten-free” doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily good for you. An organic candy bar is still a candy bar. Furthermore, many “low-fat”, processed foods add extra sugar, sodium and/ or artificial fillers to compensate for the fat that’s removed so “low-fat “doesn’t necessarily mean “low-calorie”.
Limit the Liquid Calories – Especially Alcohol
Liquid calories are the easiest to overlook, but they’re also the easiest to cut. I recommend limiting your alcohol consumption to a maximum one drink or less per day - preferably half a glass of wine. I have a saying that one glass of wine is good for the heart, more than that is bad for the waistline. It’s not so much the calories that alcohol contains that can lead to weight gain, but the way in which it is metabolized. Alcohol’s conversion to stored fat is fast and efficient; plus, because alcohol calories receive the VIP treatment by the body and are metabolized first before carbs, fats, or proteins – drinking alcohol interferes with your body’s ability to burn fat as fuel. Furthermore, alcohol increases appetite and decreases inhibition for overeating and we often combine drinking with eating high fat, high calorie foods such as cheese and nuts. Excess alcohol calories tend to show up as abdominal fat (yes, the beer belly is not a myth), which is the most dangerous place for individuals to carry extra weight. Other fairly painless ways of cutting liquid calories are using skim milk with your cereal and lowfat milk in your coffee instead of half in half. If you are attached to your morning juice, at least dilute it with water.
For more tips on healthy eating strategies for weight loss and wellness, please join me for one of my Nutrition Workshops on Monday, January 26th at 7pm at the Page Mill YMCA in Palo, Alto, CA. For more details, please visit my website www.bewellcoaching.com. If you don’t live in the San Francisco Bay Area or can’t make the workshop, I also offer my nutrition services via phone and e-mail. In my next blog I’ll offer more tips for healthy post-holiday weight loss. Until then…
Be Well,
Carolyn
Tags: be well coaching, Nutrition for Health and Performance, weight loss, wellness
