How To Avoid Winter Weight Gain
Trying to avoid winter weight gain can be a bit of challenge. Apart from the festive holidays, the
colder weather can disrupt your exercise routine, make you more likely to reach for high calorie comfort foods and lower your mood that can lead to overindulging.
We all tend to gain a few pounds when the weather starts to turn colder and the days get darker. Here are 5 winter weight loss tips to help you manage your weight at this time of year.
5 Winter Weight Loss Tips
1. Watch Out For Party Food
Obviously, one of the key ways to avoid winter weight gain is to not over-eat lots of high-calorie, non-nutritious foods. Follow a rule of portion control and if you’re at a buffet, don’t eat next to the food table as you’ll eat more. Take what you want and then going sit somewhere else. Eat some high-fiber fruits and vegetables like apples or carrots to fill up before going to a party to curb your desire for calorie-rich party foods.
2. Don’t Stop Your Exercise
Keeping to a regular fitness schedule is the key to avoiding winter weight gain. When it’s dark before and after work it can very tempting to skip your regular exercise routine. If don’t want to be outside for your outside activities, try some other forms of exercise. You could go swimming at your local indoor pool or trying some dance classes to keep you fit and healthy. There are also plenty of ways to exercise at home.
3. Drink Less Alcohol
Alcohol is very high in calories and can cause you to collect fat especially around your stomach. It is often consumed in large amounts because it’s liquid and makes you to feel hungrier, so you eat more. Have a glass of water between each alcoholic drink. This will slow down your alcohol consumption and help you to feel full. Get into the habit of drinking more water throughout the day to help you avoid winter weight gain as it has no preservatives, no sodium, and no calories.
4. Control Your Calories
You only need to reduce your calorie intake by 100 calories per day to make a substantial effect on your weight over the period of the year. This is a very manageable goal for most people and it is not too difficult to cut back by that amount. Don’t try and restrict your calories intake too much as it will slow down your metabolism and make it more difficult to to reduce your weight over the long-term.
5. Don’t Give Up
Losing weight in winter is more difficult than any other time of the year. Research does show that the average person puts on between 2 to 3 kilos (approx 5 to 7 pounds) at this time of year. But if you’re too restrictive and never allow yourself to eat the things you enjoy, it will make you miserable and you’ll give up totally trying to avoid winter weight gain. You need to allow yourself a few treats now and then. If you do eat too much at one meal, just leave it at that. Make the next meal better.
AVOID WINTER WEIGHT GAIN THE EASY WAY
Take a hard look at your diet and workout plan as well as your calorie-tracking system to ensure everything is on the right track. Take advantage of apps like My Food Diary. This highly-acclaimed food database contains over 100,000 foods to improve your diet and the exercise log can calculate calories burned for over 700 activities to help you achieve your weight loss goal.
