Time for Exercise

The holiday season can be challenging when you want to be careful about your diet. There are so many temptations and high fat recipes, not to mention the sheer temptation to eat, eat, eat. It’s not easy to cope with.

And it’s less than a week away.

How are you going to cope with all the temptations? There are some steps you can take to help.

Step 1: Watch the fat

A lot of holiday foods are higher in fat than what you normally eat. It’s not just the desserts, it’s the creamy sauces. Even if you aren’t cooking, offer to bring a dish so that you have some control over the content of at least one item. Make it healthier yet still delicious.

If you don’t mind eating the white meat from the turkey, do so. Many people prefer the dark meat, which has a stronger flavor, but the white meat has less fat. But overall turkey meat is not that bad for you, so there’s only so much guilt you should feel if you just have to have dark meat.

Step 2: Think before you eat and drink

It’s not just the food, after all. If you spend all of Thanksgiving day snacking and drinking sodas, wine, beer or anything with calories, you’re going to greatly increase your caloric intake. Try to keep your snacking under control and remember that water is good for you.

Step 3: Watch your portions

How much do you really need to eat, even on a holiday? While a single day’s indulgence is not a complete disaster it can be an uncomfortable feeling knowing that you have completely blown your carefully laid diet plans.

Step 4: Eat the things you will enjoy

Just because you want to control your eating doesn’t mean you should completely deprive yourself. Depriving yourself too much will only make later misbehavior too tempting. Take smaller portions if necessary, but eat the things you really want.

Step 5: Go easy on desserts

Desserts can be hugely tempting and very high in calories. Pick a favorite and don’t eat too much of it.

Step 6: Take a walk after dinner

Get out of the house and walk. It’s a nice easy bit of exercise that you can get the entire family involved in. It’s a delightful time for just talking. Any kids in the crowd will probably really enjoy the time out as well.

Step 7: Don’t regret what you do enjoy

If you go overboard on Thanksgiving, don’t beat yourself up over it. Allow yourself to get back into your routine rather than giving up. The more time you spend regretting not getting tit right, the more time you’re wasting getting back on track.

Having a perfect figure is the goal for many. I know that I’d love to get my middle under control once again, but that has been my challenge since having two children, one by C-section, I’ve had to struggle with a touch of extra weight and slack stomach muscles.

It’s hard. These used to be the areas that just came naturally to me. I drove people nuts that way.

But now it’s much harder, and I know it.

I’m still pretty fortunate, since my weight is just in the higher part of the healthy range. I work harder than I used to have to in order to keep it that way.

Being honest with myself about these physical changes has been a challenge. It’s easy to see it as worse than it is or better than it is. An honest self assessment is challenging.

So how do I go about it? How should you go about it?

The first thing is to know where you are in terms of where you want to be or where you feel you ought to be. I don’t own a scale, but I do check my weight occasionally at my inlaws’ house. It keeps me lightly aware of where I’m at without obsessing over it. It works for me. It doesn’t work for everyone.

If weight is your concern, know where you are compared to what’s considered healthy. If you’re just a little higher than you want to be, and still in the healthy range, things aren’t that bad. If you’re far from where you would like to be, you should be aware of that too.

If overall fitness is your goal, you need to be honest about that too. Plan out how you’re going to reach your goals. Work toward them. When life gets in the way, admit it and allow yourself to get back on track.

Being honest with yourself about what you are and are not achieving will help you to succeed, but it’s not easy. It takes practice. It takes a degree of honesty about yourself that is not always easy to achieve. But it’s also something that will help you to reach your goals.

One of the biggest blocks to getting fit is the mental block. If your mind just isn’t cooperating with your goals, you aren’t going to get anywhere.

You know you’re not in the right frame of mind when you allow too many excuses to keep you from exercising. If you always come up with reasons why you can’t get to the gym, take a walk, take the stairs or whatever else you’re doing to improve your level of fitness, it’s time to figure out why you are doing this to yourself.

Start out by looking at your fitness goals. You do have fitness goals, don’t you?

If not, come up with some. Keep them realistic and allow for improvement over time. Depending on what you think will motivate you the most, you can base your goals on time spent exercising, goals for specific exercises, weight loss and so forth. You decide what will keep you going.

If you do have goals, why aren’t you reaching for them? Did you set them too high? Too low? Too vague? Rethink your plans and figure out what you can do so that you really want to achieve them.

Now think about where you work out.

If it’s at the gym, why aren’t you going? Is a gym membership really the best thing for you? Can you make it easier to get yourself there? Would finding a friend or partner to meet there help?

If you work out at home, what’s keeping you from doing it? Are there too many distractions? Not enough distractions when you work out? A television or radio where you work out can be a very good thing if it encourages you to use your equipment.

Or maybe you haven’t bought any equipment yet. While a home gym isn’t an absolute necessity, and many exercises can be done without equipment, it does make exercising easier. If budget is the problem, take a look at the possible solutions.

You can check garage sales for the things you want. Freecycle (a website where people offer things for free). eBay. You have loads of options that can help you find used home gym equipment in very good condition, and that can save you quite a bit of money over buying new.

Consider hiring a coach or personal trainer to at least get yourself started on a good routine. A professional can help you find ways to reach your goals and really motivate you to reach for it.

Despite all the excuses that are so easy to make, it is very realistic to plan to get fit in your spare time. It’s just a matter of figuring out what will motivate you to keep working at it. Nothing good will happen otherwise.

For many people, trying to lose weight is quite simply a miserable experience. Conflicting advice, weight loss pills, tough exercise regimes, deprivation of your favorite foods… it’s just not fun.

Worse yet is how often it’s not sufficiently effective. All that work and too often the goals still appear unattainable.

But no matter how much weight you want to lose, there are a couple things that are very important to keep in mind.

1. Exercise.
   If you aren’t exercising, you aren’t increasing the number of calories your body is burning, and it becomes much harder to lose weight. Make sure you include at least 20 minutes three times per week of aerobic exercise to most improve your overall fitness. Find something you enjoy doing to make this a bit easier.
2. Eat more healthy foods.
   Low carb, glycemic index, whatever rules you want to go by, the most important is to include a lot of healthy foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables. If you work at finding recipes you really enjoy this will become an easier lifestyle change to maintain, making it easier to maintain your weight loss for the long run.
3. Eat less.
   No matter the diet, there’s a part of it that comes down to calories. Eat too many calories of any type and you’ll gain weight. If you need to snack to get through the day comfortably, find healthy alternatives to your old snacks that won’t add so many calories to your daily total. It doesn’t have to be rice cakes and celery; it can be what tastes good to you and keep you from thinking on less healthy and higher calorie alternatives.
4. Don’t get in your own way.
   Sometimes you will get frustrated. But giving up because things aren’t going so smoothly as you like won’t help matters any. If you slip up, start right back up again. If the scale isn’t showing the changes you’d like to see, remind yourself that it all takes time.

Within these basic parameters you can find plenty of ways to drop unwanted weight in a way that is comfortable for you. If one way is too stressful or leaves you feeling too deprived, try another way. There are plenty of alternatives out there; no point sticking with one you hate.