1. Record What You Eat
During the festive season, we often forget to monitor what we eat and simply splurge out whenever food is brought to the table. Even those who have experienced excellent results after following the best diet plan think that splurging out will not do too much harm. Unfortunately, this is not true. During the festive season, keep a food diary with you and record everything you eat. Look at your daily food intake at the end of each day to determine how much damage you have done. Then take notes on what to avoid the following day. Keep the diary with you at all times and have a look at the ‘no-no’ list before you eat anything. The diary will also tell you if you’ve eaten too much during the day so that you can avoid overeating in the evening. When your daily food intake entry looks a bit empty at dinner, then you could treat yourself to dessert.
2. Morning Exercise Routine
The moment you wake up this festive season, chances are you’ll immediately smell a delicious meal being cooked up for breakfast in the kitchen. All you want to do is grab a cup of coffee and stuff yourself with the delicious food that will be served. Instead of immediately running off to the kitchen, start your day with a morning exercise routine. Dr. yL reports that a recent study monitored the effect of exercise on food cravings and found an exercise routine to significantly lower the activation of certain responses in the brain that is responsible for food cravings. Thus, by starting your day with an exercise routine, you will be less likely to snack on unhealthy foods and to overeat.
3. Be In Control
You may think that you are in control of your body, but as soon as you see a delicious serving of foods, then your brain takes over, and you start to overindulge yourself. Self-control is a technique that should be practiced and perfected. If you practice self-control in different situations, then you will eventually perfect the technique, which will help you stay in control of your food cravings as well. Forbes recommends exercising and meditating regularly, as well as to constantly practice self-control in different situations – such as when the children are out-of-control.
4. Eat All Day Long
When it comes to festive times, many people tend to starve themselves all day long and then splurge out when dinner is served. Dinners during this time are usually filled with a lot of food, including some unhealthy choices that will go straight to your belly. It is reported that fasting all day long will make you more likely to overeat at night and will increase your food cravings for unhealthy foods. This strategy is especially important if you are taking a diet pill, as you need to supply your body with a regular dose of nutrients.
5. Dish Up In A Smaller Plate
The bigger the plate, the more space you have to fill it up with food. That’s a problem many of us have, especially while looking at all of the delicious food served during the festive season. Health.com reports that you can lose as much as 18 pounds in a single year by simply changing to a smaller plate. If you dish up in a smaller plate, there will be less space to fill, which means you will eat considerably less.
6. Hand Out Leftovers
There’s nothing like eating last night’s delicious treats for breakfast, but this is also very unhealthy for your body. When people gather at your house for a festive celebration, do not let them leave empty-handed. Rather put the leftovers in containers and hand it out to your guests. By doing this, you will not have an unhealthy selection of food to choose from the next morning.
7. Go For Healthier Drinks
Cola, diet soda and many other carbonated beverages are usually readily available at Christmas parties and other festive gatherings. While these may be delicious and preferred by everyone at the gathering, you should rather try to opt for a healthier beverage. Even diet soda has been linked to weight gain, which means the “diet” part in its name doesn’t hold any significant benefits for your weight. Instead of drinking carbonated beverages, Telegraph recommends opting for iced tea, diluted fruit juice, coconut water or a vegetable juice instead.
Conclusion
If you are conscious about your weight and find it easy to gain more pounds, but difficult to lose them, then you should follow these seven simple strategies to help you avoid gaining additional weight this festive season.
Featured photo credit: smartlifebites.com via google.co.in
