4 Ways To Stick To Your Diet This Holidays

If we’re just talking about Christmas day itself you might gain a pound of fat. While the scales on Boxing day might show you up six or seven pounds, this is mainly water and food weight, so your pound of fat loss doesn't seem such a big deal. But the holidays aren't just one day.

How much weight do you think you’ll put on over the holidays?

You’ve got the lead up to Christmas with parties, meals out with friends, family get togethers, work outings and general gluttony and sluggishness. For many people, the holiday season starts a few days before Thanksgiving, and runs until New Year. Then again, it’s highly likely you’ll still have plenty of holiday goodies left over that run you well into the first few weeks of the New Year.

Add all of that together, and you’re looking at a good 10 pounds of weight gain at the very least and even if you gave yourself some leeway and looked at a worst case scenario, 14 or 15 pounds isn’t out of the question.

How much weight did you lose this year and how quickly did you lose it? For most people, a healthy rate of weight loss is around one to two pounds per week, meaning it could take you up to three months to lose your holiday weight. Those Christmas treats aren’t looking so tempting now, are they?

There’s the people that I refer to as the “Screw it” crowd. They see that holidays only come once a year, think that going a little off the rails on the diet front won’t do any harm, and generally do as they please over Christmas, which basically means stuffing their faces.

Unfortunately, these people are the ones who try to justify the holidays as being “just one day” yet manage to turn one day of treats into a two month binge-fest. They’re also the people who generally don’t stick to their diet the rest of the year, and wonder why they’re in worse shape next January than they were the last one.

Then there are those who have a little more self control. They realize that sticking to a 100 percent clean diet over Christmas is probably slightly overkill, and that it’s a good chance to relax eating boundaries a little, have some foods they wouldn’t usually eat and enjoy themselves, while practicing moderation. These people are usually in great shape, have a very healthy relationship with food, and will start the New Year feeling invigorated, de-stressed and ready to give their all in the gym and in the kitchen for the next 12 months.

If you’re currently more of a category one person, you need to transition into category two ASAP. Not only will you get better results year round, you’ll have a better relationship with food, find social occasions involving eating much easier and not start the New Year feeling bloated, lethargic and demotivated.

To get you on your way, here are four really simple ways you can stick to your diet over the holiday.

4 Tactics For Sticking To Your Diet Over The Holidays

1. Plan, plan and then plan some more.

Before the holiday season gets into full swing, sit down with your diary and make a detailed plan of how you want things to go down. If you don’t have a diary, or your current one’s pretty small, then get down to the store and buy a bigger one – it needs to be large enough to make some pretty detailed notes and should have a separate page for each day.

First thing’s first – go through each day from December 18th through January 2nd and mark off any meals where you’re eating out or are dining at someone’s house. These meals will likely be out of your control, so it’s best to put them to the back of your mind for the moment, and make a more detailed plan for them nearer the time.

The next stage is to go back through every day and mark off your usual meal times. If you usually eat breakfast at 7:30am, lunch at midday, an afternoon snack at 4pm and your dinner at 8pm, then that’s what you’ll do without fail whenever you’re making your own meals.

Finally, write down what you’ll have. This may seem pretty anal, but it’s imperative you control your diet as much as possible, and if this means making plans very early on then so be it.

The meals you have should all be regular meals you’d usually eat – high protein, low to moderate carb, low to moderate fat, plenty of vegetables and calorie controlled. This leads us on to our next point…..

2. Count Your Calories

Download a calorie counting app, and calculate your calories every day. Hopefully you do this anyway, so on the slightly quieter and more “normal” days over the holidays this shouldn’t be an issue, but I’d even recommend doing it on the days you go out, and on Christmas day itself.

It’s virtually impossible to accurately guess your calories, and we typically grossly underestimate how many calories are in certain foods. As an example, studies have shown Americans will automatically guess that a salad-based dish is low calorie, while estimating that one containing meat is far, far, higher. As we know, this isn’t the case. A big salad containing cheese, croutons, bacon, dressing and olives could contain close on 1,000 calories, while a big, lean steak may only be 300.

Counting calories is a fantastic way to make you aware of exactly how much you’re eating. By all means enjoy yourself on the big days, but take those excess calories into account. Seeing a huge number flash up at you on your computer screen is a surefire way to make sure you don’t just eat junk for the sake of it.

3. Be the Host

Controlling your diet is far easier if you’re in control of everything. It may be more hassle, but that hassle is worth it when come January you’re still in as good a shape as you were in November.

You can make healthier alternatives to the usual holiday fare, serve up plenty of vegetables and lean meats and keep the calorie-filled, sugar and fat-laden pseudo foods to a minimum.

4. Train

Training serves two purposes. It burns off a few of those excess calories, and keeps you motivated. Skipping sessions makes you feel lazy and lethargic, and more likely to succumb to the temptations of junk food. Sticking to your training plan is the catalyst you need to keep healthy.

Enjoy yourself over the holidays and have a little of what you fancy. Just reign it in slightly with these four tactics – remember, what you do this holiday season will pave the way for your success next year.