October is here, and with it three major holidays full of dinner parties with irresistible food, an abundance of desserts and candy surrounding you, and dates with friends with holiday-flavored lattes and cocktails. With all of the hype, the busyness of our schedules, and irresistible comfort foods around us constantly, it can be hard to keep our health and weight goals. It’s no wonder that we are all pledging to lose weight when January 1st comes around! Follow this 5 simple tips and stay slim, healthy and most importantly: happy this holiday season!
1. Take Dietary Supplements
Keeping a healthy diet is important because it enables us to support our body’s health by providing essential vitamins, nutrients, and energy needed. However, there are certain limitations that occur when our diets lack to be as healthy as possible, such as in the Holiday season when comfort foods and an abundance of sugary foods are at our fingertips. To help ensure you stay healthy, slim and satisfied this Holiday season, taking certain dietary supplements may help. According to Harvard med, many Americans lack essential nutrients such as calcium, potassium, magnesium, and vitamins A, C, and D through their diet. According to National Institutes of Health, taking supplements is a topic of debate, but when taking them properly and with the advice of a professional, they may help your health improve significantly.
2. Stick to a Routine
One of the best ways to succeed at anything in life is to make a plan of action, then create habits and a routine to help you stick with it. If you leave your decisions on whether or not to reach for another home-baked cookie up to chance, your willpower will fail you every time. Instead, get a routine going that fits with your schedule and stick to it. For example, have a morning workout routine in place 30 minutes before your morning shower, skip your creamer in your morning coffee, and before you get out of your car at the next Thanksgiving dinner, or Holiday party, decide ahead of time that you won’t go back for seconds, or you will only have 2 desserts, etc. Deciding ahead of time will ensure you don’t have regret or a stomach ache later, and you will feel more empowered. Keeping a healthy diet and workout regimen throughout the week will help you ensure you won’t gain unwanted pounds if you accidentally slip up.
3. Let Yourself Indulge
Go to the dinner party… for the 3rd time this week! Drink a glass of eggnog, baked with your friends and lick the bowl, have that holiday cocktail. If you don’t allow yourself to indulge, you’ll be stressed out, and missing out and probably will still end up having a lot of the stuff you are trying to avoid anyway! The holiday seasons are about being thankful, enjoying time with friends and family and embracing this unique season where every neighbor, friend, and coworker shares delicious homemade goodies with you and invites you out to celebrate. Remember that health is about feeling happy and confident not just avoiding all the things you crave! You will likely find that if you are so caught up enjoying the people, the flavor of whatever it is you enjoy ad the festivities around you, you will be satisfied and not feel the need to binge on any one thing or overdo it.
4. Cure your Cravings
If you find yourself overwhelmed by cravings this Holiday season, bring a healthy and delicious salad to the dinner party you are going to attend, and fill up on that as much as you can, and then add little bits of other things. For dessert, make something healthier with lower sugar, and organic dark chocolate, or a sweet fruit plate instead. Another good tip is to have a protein shake and a lot of water before eating dinner to fill yourself up and have fewer cravings for fatty foods, sugars, and carbs.
5. Walk it off
The leaves have changed this Autumn, and so many of us are lucky to live in beautiful Fall destinations. Wherever you are calling home this upcoming holiday season, or if you are visiting family, take a walk around the neighborhood to trick or treat, take a stroll after Thanksgiving dinner, or walk around to see Christmas lights in your neighborhood. Doing a bit of sale shopping is also a fun and shameless way to burn a lot of calories. Whatever happens this holiday season, walk it off. Get some fresh air and enjoy the loved ones and the beautiful scenery around you.
What do you think?