Holidays are an excellent opportunity to recharge your batteries. This is especially important if you had a tough year that involved a lot of working overtime. Several days of rest were just what you need to reset yourself and get ready for future challenges.
The problem is – you didn’t only get energy for days to come, but also some extra weight. You neglected a healthy lifestyle and that resulted in additional pounds that you want to eliminate as soon as possible. Let’s take a look at what you can do to deal with the post-holiday extra weight.
How Do I Get Back in Shape After Holidays?
There is no need to lie and say that will be an easy task. The holidays probably disrupted your routine and the critical thing to focus now is returning to it. As long as you have the willingness to invest time and effort into getting back in shape, that will be more than possible.
Keep reading to find out how to optimize your diet plan to stay healthy while reaching and maintaining optimal weight, as well as discover tips that will help you shed extra pounds as soon as possible.
How Can I Stay Nutritious?
When it comes to a healthy diet plan, the key lies in achieving balance. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, you should focus on consuming whole grains, fruits, vegetables and dairy products that are either low-fat or completely free of fat.
Aside from those, you should ensure to eat fish, poultry, lean meat, eggs, beans and nuts. Include these on a weekly basis while controlling portion sizes should be enough to secure optimum intake of nutrients. Everyone is talking about the number of calories and how you should strive to eat 2,000 calories every day, but USDA emphasizes this depends on your sex, age and physical activity level.
Keep in mind that the food you avoid is equally important to the one you eat. Limiting sweets and added sugars, sodium and trans and saturated fats is a must if you want to pursue a healthy lifestyle.
Daily Meal Plan
If you are wondering how to plan a healthy daily menu, here are some hints that you may consider useful:
- Breakfast – In the morning, you need a protein boost with some addition of fiber to get your energy up for the remaining of the day. Mixing poached eggs with low-fat milk, grapefruit, and wholegrain toast can be an excellent idea. Oatmeal and corn flakes are also a great choice.
- Lunch – Go for fish at least two times a week and, if you are a meat lover, roasted or baked chicken breast can be an amazing option. Don’t forget to make a salad out of fresh veggies. Vegetable and chicken noodle soups are also great choices.
- Dinner – Mind your portion size as people tend to eat too much for dinner. Consider mixing some protein (lean meat) with some starch while ensuring that a green salad or colorful veggies make at least half of your plate.
- Snacks – Between meals is the most suitable time for snacks, although they are completely optional. For daily snacks, go for a banana and a cup of plain yogurt. Alternatively, mix a cup of sliced carrot with some hummus and pita bread. The crucial thing to consider after dinner is to keep things light, but you can consider an apple or raspberries in combination with frozen yogurt.
Now, let’s take a look at five amazing tips to help weight loss quickly after the holidays.
Intermittent Fasting
This is an approach to weight loss that involves eating only during certain periods of time during the day and fasting during the remaining portion. Intermittent fasting demands going without food for at least 13 hours per day (not more than 18 is recommended).
This may seem like a huge amount of time, but keep in mind that around eight hours is the time you spend asleep. When deciding the period for intermittent fasting, keep in mind when you are getting up. For example, if you wake up at 8 AM each morning, you shouldn’t eat anything after 7 PM.
This approach not only reduces the number of calories you ingest on a daily basis but also comes with health benefits, such as improved insulin resistance and diabetes control and reduced blood pressure.
Get Moving
There probably wasn’t enough time (or desire) to be physically active during the holidays, but now it is time to change that. There are many studies confirming health benefits if physical activity, but when it comes to weight loss, the crucial thing to remember is sweating.
People often resort to running, but if you feel like that is too much for you at the moment, start with brisk or even regular walking. Any type of physical activity will help you burn calories, but sweat will also contribute to detoxifying your organism.
Detoxify Your Organism
The holidays often involve eating with family and that involves a lot of sweets, processed food, refined carbs, and desserts. One of the important things to consider to get rid of extra weight and get back in shape and optimal health is detoxification.
What you need is to steer clear of unhealthy food (desserts, snacks, processed food) and focus on protein and healthy fat alternatives. Bone broth is an excellent way to promote digestion and gut health while eliminating toxins from your organism.
Green juices are also a great choice, but even water can provide a metabolism boost. The researchers confirmed it accelerates metabolism by 30% shortly after drinking a 17-ounce water.
State Your Goals
You can use this tip whenever you want to lose weight and not only during the holidays. Before you start with the new diet plan and apply healthy tips, write your goals on a piece of paper. Try to be as specific and realistic as possible. For example, write that you will lose eight pounds until the end of February.
Make sure to measure your current weight and track your progress every day. This is important as each small progress toward your goal will motivate you to continue. Make sure to acknowledge the success you made each day and celebrate small victories on your way to the finish line.
The 10-Minute Craving Rule
One of the trickiest obstacles to deal with will be food cravings, especially since you caved into your urges constantly during the holidays. Reader’s Digest suggests a 10-minute rule – whenever you crave something, wait for ten minutes.
Try to focus on a current task on your to-do list or occupy yourself in some other way. According to studies, this should be enough for the craving to go away. A bonus tip – remove any snacks or sweets from your house to avoid giving into temptation.
Final Thought
We hope that this article provided you with some helpful tips to assist you on your way to reaching your optimal weight. However, everything is ultimately up to you and the decisions you make on a daily basis. You will need to take care of your nutrition, eat the right foods and avoid unhealthy choices, while also resorting to physical activity and exercise. Add to that just a little bit of persistence and we are certain you will have that perfect body shape back in no time! Also you can take a look at Phenocal reviews to add to your diet plan.
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