Surviving the Holidays
Surviving the Holidays -
Hey guys here’s a couple more tips to put at the fore front of your brain during the holidays…
Manage your alcohol Consumption- Its no secret that alcohol is not the breakfast of champions, yes its high in calories! Did you know that each gram of alcohol has 7 calories, compared to the typical 4 calories per gram for other carbs. Alcohol is also known to stimulate your appetite, who cares about a diet?!?! Where’s the chocolate! On top of this, alcohol effects your liver, you know, the organ that helps drive your fat-burning processes. With alcohol in your body, the liver has to divert to burning it instead, so it has less time to work on burning the fat. Researchers found that if someone drinks only 3 ounces of alcohol a day, about one-third LESS fat will be processed! WOW! Talk about slowing down the weight loss wagon! We aren’t saying you can’t drink alcohol people. We know you gotta live life, part of making a diet doable and attainable is to be able to do things that you enjoy. Just be aware of how the alcohol effects your goals and drink it in moderation this holiday season which brings me to my next point.
Log What You Eat- Lop Off Pounds During the holidays, keep track of what you eat, and how many calories you consume daily by writing the information down in a food journal. Not fun I know, but this practice has been shown in research to promote weight loss, even during the holidays! In one study, 38 dieters (32 women and 6 men) recorded their food and calorie intake during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. The researchers categorized the dieters into groups according to how consistently they kept track of their food and calorie consumption. Weight loss was recorded as well. The best and most consistent self-monitors lost an average of 10 pounds more than those who had a low level of compliance with the journaling.
There are a ton of free apps you can download on your phone to help you with this. I personally like one called Macros, because not only does it count your calories for you but surprise, surprise…it also tells you about your macros! If you guys don’t know what those are about please post comments down below letting me know and I can get into that next time. For now though just get something going if you haven’t yet. Its just as good as having an accountability partner…priceless. However its free, yay!!!!
