To succeed in life, you have to be a loser.
Holiday Gains
We tend to gain weight during the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. Big, fantastic meals and spending time with family mean we eat a bit more. Holidays mean weight gain in almost every culture.
Record Your Intake
To limit your weight gain during holidays, use a tracking app to monitor your eating. Tracking what you eat and drink helps prevent overeating. With consistent monitoring, you learn what foods increase your calorie intake and how different foods fit into your plan. Search your phone’s App Store for diet-tracking apps.
The Problem Ain’t Turkey
Another way to limit holiday weight gain is to avoid sweets and focus on protein. The problem ain’t turkey, it’s the bread, cookies, cakes, and pies. Also, it’s easier to go hog wild on carbs than on proteins. It seems no amount of cookies will make you full, but a good serving of protein keeps you full. If you’re going to eat carbs, make them high-fibre carbs like veggies and whole grains. Avoid sugary foods as much as humanly possible, which means keep the desserts small.
Sweating the Weight Off
One of the benefits of protein is that it takes more calories to digest. Almost ¼ of the protein calories we eat are burned digesting it. It is one of the reasons protein makes you warm. Your body is running full steam to break apart the protein. This is sometimes called the protein sweats.
Teetotal For a Loser Holidays
One other way to limit calories during holidays is to avoid high-calorie drinks. Fruit punch is full of sugar and hence, calories. Wine also has a lot of calories. One glass of wine (at 5 glasses per bottle) has almost as many calories as a full can of Coke. Ounce for ounce, wine has twice the calories of a soft drink. If you do have wine, keep it tiny. And hard liquor is even worse. A shot glass can be 100 calories.
Be a Loser
Even if we try to limit holiday weight gain, we might still gain a bit. The average person gains about 2 lbs at Christmas alone. That means, unless we want to gain 20 lbs every 10 years, we have to be losers for the rest of the year. Aim to lose a pound every 3 months. That will keep you in tip-top form.
Enjoy Holidays By Losing
To be successful with our weight, we have to live our daily lives as losers. That allows us to enjoy the holidays with our friends and family. The fun and friendships are worth being a loser for the rest of the year.
