Personal Trainer Tips: Prevent Holiday Feast Fat Gain!

How To Enjoy Your Christmas Feast Without Worrying About Your Diet!

Christmas is almost here! Everybody knows that with the holidays comes copious amounts of deliciously fattening foods. Have you committed to fat loss success by staying strict or have you already admitted defeat?

There are plenty of strategies to reduce your calorie intake during the holiday celebration.  Most people will tell you to “go light on the starches” or “munch on veggies”, and while these are completely acceptable ways to avoid too many calories, they are also extremely boring and in no way signify what it means to celebrate.  

Why can’t you just eat what you want (within reason) and not feel pressured to avoid all the tasty foods you love? Read on to discover how you can minimize the damage and still enjoy your favorite holiday dishes!

First, in order for this to be effective, let’s set some ground rules.  

  1. Don’t binge.  Enjoy the food that you rarely get to eat, but don’t eat more than you need to. Don’t leave the table bloated!

  2. Go easy on the egg nog.  Drinking your calories is a great way to sky rocket your total caloric intake for the day.   Limit yourself to 1-2 servings of any beverages that contain calories.

  3. The feast ends on Christmas.  If your post Christmas nutrition includes pumpkin pie and sugar cookies, then this isn’t going to work for you.  Enjoy the holiday, then get back on track!

Now that we have the rules out of the way, here’s what you need to do.

  1. Starting today, keep your carbohydrate intake at ~50 grams per day up until the day of the feast.  The only carbohydrates you should be eating in this time period are green vegetables (broccoli, spinach, cabbage, asparagus etc.).  The bulk of your caloric intake for the next few days should be from protein and healthy fats.

  2. Deplete/lower your stored glycogen.  You are already eating very low carbohydrate, now add in some exercise.  Your workouts should be primarily heavy weight lifting supplemented with some conditioning work.  Christmas is on Wednesday this year, so do these workouts on Monday and Tuesday.  If you can manage it, switch one of those workouts to Wednesday before the feast. This will prime your muscles to absorb a good portion of the carbohydrates you will be eating.

  3. Fast, or dramatically lower calories, for 24 hours after the feast.  If the meal ends at 6 pm then you won’t eat anything until 6 pm the following evening.  That meal should be based around protein and green vegetables.  Even though you won’t be eating anything throughout the day, be sure to still drink plenty of water.

If you can follow these steps closely, you will greatly minimize or eliminate any potential for gaining fat.  Christmas is a time to celebrate, don’t deny yourself of the comforts of the holiday!  

From Your Trainers at Capital Strength: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!