Fall is almost here, and shortly after fall, we are hit with the holidays. It may seem a little premature to think about it now, but before we know it there will be loads of Halloween candy, Thanksgiving dinner, and holiday parties. The holidays are a time for fun and family togetherness, but also a time where those sneaky little extra pounds can creep up on you fast. So today I am sharing 25 tips to help you avoid holiday weight gain.
Even if you have an iron will, saying no to all of the sweet treats during the holiday season can be difficult. The funny part about the holidays is that everywhere you look, someone has a sweet treat. The office is full of pumpkin spice donuts, cookies, and cakes. The grocery store has all of the dessert items on sale and in the front of the freaking store. And every party or gathering we attend seems to have an extra helping of dessert. While the decorations go away in January, the excess holiday pounds do not.
The holiday season always seems to feel like such a busy time of the year. When we are busy, those trips to the gym can seem to get harder to make. While the trips to the gym become fewer and fewer, those pesky little pounds start to pile on. But, gaining excess weight during the holidays is avoidable if you plan and take the right steps.
25 Tips To Avoid Holiday Weight Gain
1 – Avoid Stress Eating
Many people say that they feel extremely stressed during the holiday season. Sometimes the stress is due to holiday travel, having guests in town, or being responsible for throwing a holiday party. If you are someone who has these stresses in your life, you may turn to food to cope with them.
Grabbing a donut or bag of chips is one of the quickest ways to make yourself gain excess weight.
If you know that things like hosting or having people in town stress you out, try to find healthier ways to help you cope such as meditation and breathing.
Also, when you are home, try to keep the unhealthy snacks out of your house. Go for snacks like almonds or a piece of fruit when you feel like you need to snack on something.
2 – Start The Day With Exercise
During times when our schedules are packed with activities, we have to make the most out of our days. Going to the gym or doing a home workout at the start of your day is one of the most effective ways to help yourself avoid holiday weight gain. Getting a morning workout does not mean that you should allow yourself to eat everything in sight, but the fact that you are getting moving and burning calories gives you a little bit of wiggle room.
Getting up early to workout will free up your time, and give you a chance to hit that holiday party after work, or burn off the excess calories from the night before.
3 – Skip The Seconds
Holiday dinners are typically served buffet style, which can be extremely tempting when you are hungry. There are usually several foods to choose from, and when you are hungry, everything looks good.
Buffet style meals can lend itself to people serving themselves seconds and sometimes even thirds. The extra servings lead to excess calories and additional weight gain.
Instead of finishing a plate and immediately going back in for another serving; try to give yourself time to assess if you are still hungry. If you are, try not to go for another full serving. Serve yourself a smaller portion. If you feel full, move on to other aspects of the party and away from the food.
In this post, I talk about how our bodies need time to register if we are full or not.
4 – If You Are Hosting, Serve Meals Restaurant Style
Our eyes tend to be much bigger than our stomachs when we feel hungry. If you are eating your meal in the dining room, try to leave the food in the kitchen.
The saying out of sight, out of mind can be true when it comes to food as well. If you have a delicious pie in front of you, you are more likely to grab another piece even if you do not want it. Opt for a smaller plate and try not to fill it with tons of food.
When we have a table filled with food in front of us, it makes us more likely to consume more than we ordinarily would. Try to keep the food away from your eating area to help cut back on consumption.
5 – Do Not Arrive Hungry
Have you ever gone to the grocery store for a couple of items on an empty stomach? If you have, you can probably attest to spending way more than you intended to on foods you did not plan to buy.
When hunger is top of mind, we go for whatever is in sight to help us satisfy that feeling. Chips, check, cookies, check.
To avoid holiday weight gain, try not to arrive at the party hungry. This may sound like counterproductive advice because it is a party, but if you eat a small healthy meal before arriving, you will be inclined to eat less.
If you arrive not feeling famished, you will be inclined to make better food choices, which will help you avoid holiday weight gain.
6 – Get Social
One of my favorite aspects of the holidays is spending time with people that I do not get to see often. Try to keep a distance between you and the food, and spend more time socializing with friends and family.
It will feel much better to hang with family and friends than it will to hover over the food and dessert table. Plus laughing is a great way to burn a few excess calories.
7 – Learn to say no
Have you ever been to someone’s house who wants to offer you everything in the pantry and then some? It can sometimes feel difficult to say no, but we have to learn how to.
It is totally fine to respectfully decline that extra dessert, and just say no. Family and friends will understand. And if you are someone who finds it hard to say no, you can simply say “I’m full.”
8 – Avoid leftovers
When people host holiday parties, they tend to cook way too much food. The result is that they try to send everyone home with a Tupperware container filled with food.
If you are anything like me, it can be hard to resist certain foods when they are in the house. The best thing to do is to avoid bringing home the leftovers.
When I have had several drinks, I tend to make some pretty terrible food choices that my body immediately regrets when I wake up. The best way to avoid eating that drunken late night snack is to skip bringing the leftovers home.
Late night eating is one of the fastest ways that our bodies pack on extra pounds. To avoid gaining holiday weight, we want to skip the late-night meals and snacks.
9 – Skip Eating Appetizers
Those cute little appetizers are usually filled with all kinds of cheeses and extra calories. Because appetizers tend to be small, we eat more of them than we probably should.
Instead of grabbing several of those cute little brie wheels, skip the apps and wait until dinner. If you followed tip number 5, you would hopefully eat a snack before you arrive. That snack should hold you over until it is time for dinner.
10 – Bring A Healthy Dish
A lot of holiday parties are potluck style. When everyone else brings the food, you have less control over what you are putting inside of your body.
Instead of choosing to bring a quick and easy meal, bring something healthy that everyone can eat. Be sure to make enough for you and to share with the other guests at the party.
By bringing a healthy option, you are making sure that you have food that is aligned with your weight loss goals, and you are bringing enough to share with others. Seeing your healthy options may prompt other guests to make healthier choices as well.
11- Eat Your Protein
Protein can be a great way to help you maintain a healthy weight. If you have the option, try to remove the bread from the mini sliders and stick to eating the meat only.
For those of us that are not meat eaters, try to grab some quinoa, lentils, or beans. If you are unsure if those sorts of options will be available, take advantage of Tip # 10 and be sure to incorporate vegetarian/vegan meal options into the healthy dish you bring to share.
12 – Pick Your Desserts Carefully
Cake is good, like really, really good. It can be so tempting to grab a huge piece of chocolate cake and then go back for seconds.
Instead of having a huge portion of cake, try having a sample size of a couple of desserts. Avoid sampling every dessert in sight, and stick to only grabbing a little bit of the desserts you love.
By indulging in a small portion of the dessert you love, you will feel more satiated, and you will be more likely to avoid indulging in other desserts.
13 – Weigh Yourself Regularly
One of the fastest ways to give yourself a jolt of reality is to step on the scale. I am not someone who loves to weigh myself over and over, but there are times when this is necessary.
If I find myself in situations where my ability to make it to the gym is less than usual, I try to keep track of my weight.
Think about it this way. If you stepped on the scale last week, and you weighed 150, stepping on next week and seeing that you weight 155 might be the jolt you need to moderate what you eat.
Seeing that you are gaining excess holiday weight, might also motivate you to do some morning workouts to help counter some of the excess food you have eaten.
If you hate working out in the mornings, check out this post to learn how I motivate myself to hit the gym before work.
14 – Get Active
Baby its cold outside, but winter can still be fun. There are so many Fall and Winter activities to do with your friends. Get out and get active. Take advantage of the farmer’s market in the fall. Or go ice skating on the cooler days.
One of my favorite holiday activities is walking around downtown to see the beautiful lights around the city.
Try to check out holiday activities in your area. Getting out and enjoying the holidays is much better than sitting in front of the TV eating snacks and packing on holiday pounds.
15 – Fiber is your friend
High fiber foods like legumes can help our bodies feel fuller for longer periods of time. Instead of going for the heavy food items and cheesy appetizers, try to hit the veggie platter and eat some veggies.
I like to use lettuce and make what I call facos (fake tacos) instead of using the tortilla.
By eating a good amount of high fiber foods, you will feel full faster when it is time to eat dinner, and you will, in turn, eat less.
16 – Plan Ahead
In most cases, you can get a good idea of what is being served at a party or a restaurant. In the beginning, it may feel a bit awkward to think about what you will eat ahead of time.
But planning your meals will allow you to have a bit of control over what you put in your body, and it will also allow you to avoid being caught off guard.
17 – Accountabilibuddy
One of the best ways to lose weight and stay fit is to have an accountability partner. By no means am I suggesting to police what your friends eat, but having a partner with the same goals as you can be helpful.
Think about the people in your circle. Whether it is a co-worker or a friend that you will attend holiday gatherings with. You guys can work together to stay motivated and help each other to avoid holiday weight gain.
18 – Freeze Food
If you are the host of the party and find yourself with tons of food, try freezing it for later. When food is not in your line of sight, it is out of mind.
Plus, freezing the food will stop you from consuming calorie-rich holiday items for days after as leftovers. It is ok to pull out a little bit at a time and unthaw it for a meal, but you will want to avoid filling up on holiday foods for days after the festivities are over.
19 – Avoid Simple Carbs
Simple carbs are what you find in foods like white bread. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE bread, but I had to end my love affair with it because it does not love me back. That belly bloat it was causing me was so real.
The problem with consuming a lot of bread is that our bodies break down simple carbs pretty quickly, which makes us feel hungrier faster. When you are hungry, you get that second plate of food, and you end up consuming more than you would have originally.
If you are not able to end your love affair with bread, try to stick to whole grain bread.
20 – Take it easy on the alcohol
This one may be one of the harder ones because there is usually no shortage of alcohol at holiday parties.
As someone who enjoys a drink or two, I will not tell you not to drink. However, I will suggest avoiding those specialty drinks like the chocolate martini, or the eggnog and bourbon. Drinks like this have tons of sugar and calories in them, so stick to drinks to vodka and soda to keep it light.
Drink responsibly, because when we drink too much, we get hungry, and we make bad food choices.
21- Go for the skinny glass
Tall skinny glasses hold less liquid than short round glasses. If you must try that chocolate martini or eggnog concoction, put it in a tall, skinny glass.
Most of the time those drinks tend to be too sweet, and you can only finish half anyway.
22 – Allow yourself to give in to your cravings
Moderation is key here. One of the many things I’ve learned throughout my fitness journey is about cravings. Cravings are kind of like being a kid, and being told no. Whatever you are told no about, you want to do that much more.
Don’t go wild on the sweets table, but it is the holidays, and a time for celebration, so allow yourself to have that slice of cake but stick to one slice.
23 – Be realistic
The holidays should be a happy time. So don’t spend every moment stressing over what you can and cannot eat. Enjoy the time with family and friends, and be realistic about the goals you are setting for yourself.
Instead of setting a huge goal of losing 10 pounds during the holidays, work to maintain your current weight, and be consistent with your diet and exercise.
Do not take the “I’ll do it later approach.” Putting off your goals will put you in the mindset that it is OK to push them off further and further.
Be sure to stay in weight loss and or maintenance mode, and try not to skip too many workouts over the holidays.
When we can visualize things, it makes them more real for us. Try writing down your goals, and commit to them.
Use this post to help you create a workout plan.
24 – Get enough rest
The holidays can be a very stressful time. Make sure that you are getting enough rest and allowing your body enough time to de-stress.
Getting a full night of rest has been linked to less weight gain, so it is vital that you allow your body enough time to sleep and recover from the day.
25 – Stay Positive
We often bog ourselves down with goals of losing a certain amount of weight by the new year. Setting goals is great (see tip 23), but it is important not to spend all of your time focusing on that one thing.
Instead, try to remain positive. Know that you are in control of your situation, and take the time to enjoy the holidays!
At the beginning of the year, the first thing we do is evaluate ourselves. It is ok to reflect and improve, just don’t beat yourself up. Onward and upward is the mindset I want you to have.
Pin this pin for later when you need a reminder of how to avoid packing on the extra pounds during the holidays!
