We all know how it goes – you there’s so much good food around the festive period and it would be so rude of you to say no and turn it down. Everyone piles on the pounds at Christmas and although it’s one of those things that we seem to have accepted as a nation these days, there are still ways that you can avoid it if you are smart. You don’t need to cut out all the bad foods and drinks that you love to enjoy at this time of the year – you can still have all of those things. Sometime’s its about substitution. Sometimes it’s about portion control. Mostly, it’s about being smart.
So, we are going to dive right on in and bring to you the very best tips to avoid piling on the pounds at Christmas:
Understand the Three Causes
According to researchers, there are three main reasons why people tend to put on weight at Christmas. The first reason is because they get lazy. When was the last time you went to the gym? Your world has been taking over by demanding children and hard to get your hands on Christmas gifts. You need new sneakers but you can’t possibly treat yourself right now because you have even more gifts to buy. You also need to make sure that you have all the right foods in, that the place is getting cleaned because you have the family coming over to yours next year and in short, you have very little time to dedicate to yourself as it is, let alone going to the gym or going for a fun outside. Plus it’s getting cold now, right?
The second reason why you are likely to put weight on at Christmas is because it’s getting cold and you have a tendency to comfort eat. Why would you eat a cold, healthy salad on a crisp winter evening when you can have a nice calorie-laden dinner followed by a rich cake and lots of sugar-filled custard. We are all guilty of doing it! Comfort eating out of cold and stress is the worst!
Finally, we come to our third reason – over-indulging. You want that extra slice of cake and custard and it’s fine because “It’s Christmas!”. It’s okay to let yourself go a little overboard at this festive time of year but remember that this things are still only okay in moderation. That’s the first thing you need to learn!
Smart Choices
When it comes to learning how not to get fat over Christmas, you need to understand that you have choices to make and the right choices will be good for you whereas the wrong choices will be bad. This is common sense when you think about it but common sense and reasoning seem to out the window once the Christmas lights are switched on!
The average person will put on between five and ten pounds over the four weeks surrounding Christmas which is pretty staggering when you think about it. This amounts to above 500 extra calories per day. That’s not hard to do – the odd luxury chocolate out of the box; these are probably worth around 100-200 calories. The skin on the turkey on Christmas day – that’s about 50-100 calories. Missing out on the butter on the vegetables can cut you down by around 50-100 calories. You could probably say no to that glass of fizzy soda too – that’ll be around another 50-100 calories depending on which one it is. Read the labels of the foods that you are over-indulging on and take a good, hard look at how many extra calories you are ingesting! Sometimes you SHOULD give up that third glass of wine to have the chocolate cake instead. Do you really need a third glass anyway?
Boozy Boozy!
Speaking of wine, booze is your enemy at this tie of year. Alcoholic drinks are filled with empty calories that will cause to put on weight, bloat out, get gassy and get drunk. Do you really want to be the drunken cousin/sister/friend/aunt at this year’s Christmas gathering? We didn’t think so…
Not only are boozy drinks filled with empty calories, they are also likely to lower your inhibitions and this can cause you to eat more than you usually would, as well as snacking when you probably shouldn’t. You’ll be surprised at how little weight you will put on weight you give up boozing just for one Christmas. One of the members of our team did it and she only put on two pounds over the four week festive period. The rest of our team averaged a weight gain of seven pounds when they carried on drinking throughout Christmas. We’re just saying…
For more information on weight loss, why not check out some of our other weight loss posts? Weight loss tips are weight loss tips all year round and you never know, you might just find whatever it is you’re looking for to avoid getting fat this Christmas!
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