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Category:
Published: December 2006
Find out how to stay in shape through the holidays.
With the holidays coming up, I feel like it's my duty to let everyone in on some useful tips to keep off those holiday pounds.
If you follow all of these tips closely you should be able to break even, and depending on your dedication to the exercise portion of this you might even lose weight!
DIET:
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Eat breakfast! This, along with the next tip may be the most important guidelines to not gaining weight over the holidays. Eating a nice, well balanced breakfast is crucial in preventing you from bingeing later on.
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Do not skip any meals. Eat as you normally would (and if you currently skip meals stop doing that, it's not good for you or weight loss), this also will prevent you from bingeing during the feast.
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Before the meal, fill up on a low calorie appetizers like shrimp cocktail, rather than the entire loaf of grandma's homemade bread. Other than having a smaller amount of calories, shrimp also has B vitamins, iron phosphorous, copper and Vitamin D among other things.
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During the feast itself, fill up on the vegetables and proteins. If there's one time of the year where the meat is cooked nearly to perfection, then this is it. Not to mention that your increased protein consumption during the feast will help you gain lean muscle mass and get rid of unwanted fat.
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Don't fill up on refined carbs like potatoes or those delicious dinner rolls. You're welcome to have some, it is a holiday feast after all - just don't allot 75% of your plates to them like many people do.
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Watch what you drink! If you're consuming alcoholic beverages, then try to monitor what you drink because there are a lot of unwanted calories per serving in almost every alcoholic beverage.
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Before dessert, go for a (brisk) walk with your friends and family, get some exercise in.
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Do a fun activity with your friends and family. Play some football, go for a bike ride, basketball, etc. etc. Get everybody moving!
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Go to the gym and bring some people. It'll help you and everyone else burn off some extra calories, and if you've been working out then your family will be motivated by the progress that they've seen in you.
EXERCISE:
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Do a total body workout, and cardio.
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For the total body workout just do a lot of compound lifts: Squats, deadlifts, leg press, bench press, shoulder press, barbell/dumbbell/machine rows. And have short rest intervals to ensure maximum fat loss.
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For cardio try to do more than 20 minutes at a pace which puts your heart rate at about 40-60 beats per minute above normal. Running, cycling, swimming anything cardio will work really.
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Remember the key here is to keep your heart rate elevated!
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