The holidays are a time of goodwill towards your neighbor, a time of giving, a time of many social gatherings, and a time of excess food and drink which leads to the “I’ll deal with it in January” syndrome that infects most holiday fitness programs. Forget about the H1N1, it’s “Turkey-itis” that’s the biggest threat to your fitness goals right now.
1. Don’t drink your calories. Calories you drink are simply wasted. They do nothing to make you feel full and satisfied, and pile on a whole whack of extra calories with nothing to show for it but a bloated waistline. Keep the alcohol to one night a week or less, and avoid soft drinks, juices, milk and eggnog. Stick to water and the occasional diet soda if you need something sweet.
2. Don’t starve yourself before a big meal. This is one of the worst ideas in the history of bad ideas. “Saving it up” by starving yourself causes your body to go into full on storage mode and ensures that all those extra calories you consume go straight to your fat stores. A better idea would be to eat a meal of the right, supportive foods before you go out. I do this routinely and I can tell you it makes it a lot easier to pass up those fatty finger foods.
3. Deplete yourself before a “big day”. This is a lesser known strategy that can make a barrage of calories relatively harmless. At any given time you hold glycogen stores, which are sugars stored in your muscles as potential fuel. When those stores are depleted, any additional calories you consume (especially from carbohydrates) will tend to replenish glycogen rather than be stored as fat. The way to turn this in your favor, is when you know you have a big eating day upcoming, to take a low carbohydrate approach the day before and end your day with a depletion workout. The best way to do that effectively is by doing a circuit-training style workout with weight and use high-repetitions, really trying to maximize the burn.
4. Eat protein. As you look at almost any buffet table this time of year, there is sure to be protein in the form of turkey breast, chicken breast, and ham. Eat that. Protein can be quite filling, and it takes longer to digest, a fact which helps regulate blood sugar, and would offset the damage even if you were to eat carbohydrates with it.
5. Work out. Just accept the fact that you’ll take in more calories this time of year and be sure to add in more time exercising to offset that. Even something as simple as going for more walks can make a significant difference. But there’s also plenty of good reasons to keep the intensity high in your workouts during this time. A dynamic workout, where you’re moving a lot – such as a boot camp workout – will burn more calories and help you increase metabolism by building lean muscle as well.
6. Cheat strategically. To avoid your body adapting to a lower calorie intake and slowing your metabolism, it’s very important to occasionally re-introduce brief periods of feasting to reassure the body, and prevent your metabolism from lapsing into “starvation mode”, stubbornly refusing to burn fat. That means you should actually plan your cheating sessions ahead of time, and to take maximum advantage of the accelerated fat-burning that results, bookend your cheats with lower carbohydrate days on either side, and use the depletion workout I outlined in #3. When you’re eating right most of the time, you can and should reward yourself with 1 or 2 cheat meals per week, to give yourself a mental break, as well as to stimulate your metabolism.
Some holiday occasions will be planned cheat days, others will involve some restraint. On your non-cheat days, rather than announcing, “I’m on a diet”, which never works, try the following: “I’m really working on changing my lifestyle, so I plan to eat, but if you see me go back for seconds, please tell me to get my butt in gear.” Most people will relate to that better, and putting it our there certainly ups the accountability factor.
These are six powerful strategies which, when properly implemented, could help you lose 10-15 pounds this holiday season, avoid the “holiday hangover” and give yourself a healthy head start in the new year.
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