Most people have been conditioned to think that holiday weight gain is simply something that cannot be avoided. There is no natural process that forces us to gain weight during the holiday season, however, unless we are talking about large bears preparing for winter hibernation. The truth is, holiday weight gain is something that can be completely and totally avoided with only a couple of handy and useful tips. Before you start munching on your family's holiday meal, consider these quick tips for stopping holiday weight gain, and you may find yourself completely avoiding the weight gain trap during the holidays no matter how many pieces of pie your grandparents try to feed you.
- The biggest pitfall when it comes to holiday eating and holiday weight gain is portion control.
When your family serves a large holiday dinner, you may find it difficult if not outright impossible to keep from eating something from every plate or platter on the table. This is where most people fail and find themselves gaining weight. You cannot forget everything you have learned about portion control by eating up a portion of everything that is served to you. Instead, choose a couple of different food items and serve yourself one portion of each. For example, if you enjoy stuffing, sweet potatoes and turkey during thanksgiving, serve one portion of each and concentrate on eating those first.
- Remember that you can always go back for more if you are still hungry.
You should also keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with bringing leftovers home with you. In other words, there is absolutely no reason to treat holiday meals like an all you can eat buffet, it simply does not have to work that way.
- If you are afraid of eating too much during a holiday meal, there are a couple of good tactics that you can employ to fill yourself up faster without all of the calories.
Start by drinking a large glass of water about 30 minutes before you are set to eat. If you are still feeling really hungry at meal time, consider eating an apple or at least half of an apple before you dig in to the real meal. Apples are full of fiber and protein which makes you feel full faster and longer, which will prevent you from overeating the turkey, stuffing, ham and other less than perfectly healthy meal options. This will make the portion control aspect of eating a holiday meal much easier to deal with, and will save you several hundred calories if not more.
Learning how to stop holiday weight gain is not difficult, you simply have to exercise a little bit of discipline and keep yourself from over eating during the family holiday meals. This is definitely attainable, it just takes practice and perseverance if you want to have a nice family dinner over the holidays without gaining a great deal of unwanted weight in the process.
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Originally posted 2008-12-17 05:03:57. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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3 comments ↓
I completely agree with you. Watching your portions is a big key. Another tip I would add is to actually use smaller plates. With a smaller plate, it’s harder to load up with more food than you need.
Great content! One more tip i would like to add is you liquid intake. It’s amazing how many calories you can cut out by just avoiding juices and soda! And being we’re talking about holidays, you might want to mention limiting the beer intake as well!
Some great points. I have recently come back from an all-inclusive holiday where all meals were ‘all you can eat’. And amazingly I came back having only put on a pound!
I think I managed this by doing exactly what you said – by drinking a zero calorie drink before my dinner. I also had another zero calorie drink between my dinner and desert, and had mostly watery fruits for desert. The drinks definitely made me feel fuller so I didn’t eat as much.
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