It always seems that from October all the way through the end of January it’s the most difficult time of year to not gain weight. Here are 3 tips to help you lose weight during the Holidays.
It’s an especially difficult time if you’re trying to lose weight. I hate to admit it but I even gained a few extra pounds over the Thanksgiving holiday. Why did I gain weigh? Because I am NOT able to resist my wife’s wonderful cooking and baking. Honestly, now just while writing this article I am thinking about the totally delicious banana bread with chocolate chips and peanut butter chips that she made.
And of course I cannot forget the pumpkin pie, coffee cake, sweet potato pie and chocolate pudding and banana pie that she made for our Thanksgiving feast. I must confess that I had more than one slice of each of these yummy goodies. And yes I did gain weight. But because I have my weight loss program in place, (the same program that I give to all of our weight loss patients), I was able to get back to my normal weight after a few days. So I decided to write this article and share a few tips that will hopefully help you avoid gaining weight during this holiday season.
Weight Loss Tip Number 1:
Skip eating breakfast. Yes you did read it right. I said do not eat breakfast for a day. On a day like Thanksgiving when you know you are going to be eating a humongous feast, it’s probably best to not eat breakfast that day. This is similar to the Protocols of intermittent fasting. With intermittent fasting you give yourself approximately 16 – 18 hours between your dinner and your lunch. The theory is that during this period of time your body will be burning all of your extra body fat. For example if you start your dinner at 7 p.m. at night you should finish around 8 p.m. Then you don’t eat until 12 noon the next day so you will be fasting for approximately 16 hours or so.
It’s really remarkable that when you do not eat for 16 to 18 hours that your body will actually increases its production of growth hormone and anabolic hormones. And these hormones increase your body’s ability to burn fat.
Simply stated when you do not eat for about 16 to 18 hours your body turns into a super efficient fat burning machine.
This will also decrease your body’s blood sugar levels. And it will even decrease your body’s cortisol levels. High levels of Cortisol in our body is known to be one of the major causes of most diseases that we suffer from.
So what I plan to do for the next holiday is to wake up have a nice cup of decaffeinated coffee with some heavy cream or half and half a packet of stevia for breakfast. After this I will try not to eat until dinner time, when I can almost eat as much as I want. I just have to be careful not to eat too many starchy carbohydrates and desserts that will turn into sugar.
We don’t want too much sugar in our bodies because when there is too much sugar in our body – insulin levels spike and this causes everything we have eaten to be stored as body fat.
Now if I get hungry and I really need to eat something at lunch time I try to keep it to healthy proteins like chicken, beef or fish and lots of leafy green vegetables like romaine lettuce and spinach. The easiest thing for me to eat would be a Cobb salad with some chicken and a very nice olive oil and vinegar dressing with oregano, salt, pepper, garlic etc.
Then after I finally eat dinner I will try not to eat for at least 12 hours. This way I give my body time to digest everything properly and help balance out my blood sugar levels. This should also help my body burn all of the excessive calories from the food that I consumed from overeating at the holiday dinner. Every time that I have done this I did not gain any weight during the holidays.
But this past Thanksgiving not only did I eat a humongous amount of food at dinner time but for breakfast I enjoyed some more of my wife’s delicious cakes and pastries. But like I said I just got back into the program the following day and I lost the weight in a couple days.
Weight Loss Tip Number 2:
Go for a walk after dinner. If you go for a nice walk after your big holiday dinner or if you play a game of football or basketball with the family your body should burn up all of the extra sugar and calories that you have eaten from your holiday meal. The more you move the better it is.
Just remember after the big feast you want to be active because the more active you are the less weight you will gain. If you are too stuffed to be active after dinner all you have to do is wake up a little earlier the next morning and go for a walk – walk outside, on a treadmill or even in the mall or ride a bike. This will also help you burn sugar, calories and fat.
Weight Loss Tip Number 3:
Eat 4-5 vegetables a day. This includes at least 2 cups of leafy green vegetables a day. This will help stuff your tummy with healthy food so there is no room for foods that make you fat.
Leafy green vegetables contain lots of nutrients to improve our overall health, decrease our appetite and help us live a skinnier, healthier and happier life.
I hope you enjoyed these weight loss tips and if you need help losing weight I invite you to call us for a free medical weight loss consultation.
Call us at 215-821-7336 and schedule your free weight loss consultation now.
