Sadly, the Medical Research Council tells us that 90% of people attempting to lose weight, lose none at all.
So if you want to avoid spending months attempting and failing to take weight back off, it’s wise to cultivate a degree of damage limitation over the festive season to prevent weight gain and that terrible feeling of having overindulged for days on end.
It’s possible to enjoy Christmas and all the treats but stay feeling good and avoid expanding the waistline with a more helpful mindset and a few simple tips.
One of the main problems I encounter is one of mindset. The mindset is usually a bit like this:
“Over the next 7-14 days all bets are off. I’ve had a tough year, I deserve a treat, so the usual things that make me feel energetic and well are out the window. I’m not going to exercise, eat the right amount of food and stay canny with alcohol.”
Of course, we all deserve a treat, but sadly an excess calorie doesn’t know it’s Christmas and New Year 🙁
Estimates vary for the number of extra calories eaten on Christmas day, but 3000 extra calories seems one of the low estimates. This would take around 5-6 hours of running to burn off.
A single mince pie can take up to an hour of walking to burn off.
A pint of lager, 45 minutes.
A large glass of wine, up to an hour.
Here’s 6 tips that can help you if you want to stay healthy and enjoy the festive season without too much damage.
1. Plan to keep over indulging at Christmas and New Year to 2 or 3 specific days at the most. Real damage to the waistline is done if you have the attitude “It’s Christmas – let the good times roll” for say, 7-10 days in a row. HAVE A PLAN OF SOME KIND, even if it’s that you’ll eat too much on Christmas day and New Year’s day and one other day.
2. Keep up the exercise. The most common reason people give for not exercising is not having enough time. But yet on holiday most people still do no exercise either. Holidays are a great time to do half an hour or get up to 10,000 steps per day or more. Doing the odd 15- 20,000 stepper or 2-3 hour ramble in the beautiful greenery in and around Edinburgh is incredibly good for the spirits.
3. Use Myfitnesspal to at least get an idea of what’s going on with energy intake- even if you do overeat, it usually keeps the calorie intake lower than it would otherwise be.
4. Learn to say no to Food Pushers – A simple “No thanks, I’m full up” is surprisingly powerful.
5. Control your environment. Once those couple of days of festivities are over, throw out or give away the most tempting foods. Excess food wasted in your body or in the rubbish bin. Either way- it’s wasted.
6. Savour the other great things at the festive season – seeing friends and family, and time off work – and having the time to exercise!
These simple tips can help you end the festive season feeling great and ready to make 2018 your fittest ever.
Have a great festive season.
Greg