5 steps to keeping the weight off over Christmas.
As December approaches I often get panicked messages from both past and current clients asking for advice on how to lose weight over Christmas.
My answer: Don’t try to lose, just maintain.
Maintenance is the single most powerful tool you can have, not just when it comes to nutrition and body goals, but I would even go as far as to say, life.
There is a difference between being stuck on a hamster wheel and maintaining with a purpose.
Let me explain….
Maintaining results, whether it’s at work or in your training, is progress. It shows you are being consistent in your efforts.
However, getting stuck in a rut; over working and under performing is torture.
So with Christmas just around the corner (I feel like now that I’ve said it, its’s official in our house), here are some things you can do to prepare yourself for the onslaught of chocolates and cheeses.
Change your environment
Did you know that we eat as a result of habits and our environment rather than the pleasure of eating the food itself?
One study gave people a questionnaire and asked whether they were popcorn eaters in the cinemas or not, before sending them off to the movies. The researchers then dished out random tubs of 1 week old stale popcorn and freshly made popcorn.
They found that those who said they regularly ate popcorn in the cinema and were given stale popcorn, ate the whole tub. Those that weren’t regular popcorn eaters didn’t.
The researchers then did a similar experiment in a different setting and used a meeting room. They found that in this instance, taste did matter, when two tubs of popcorn was offered, 1 fresh and 1 staled, people ate more of the fresh popcorn regardless of how strong their habit of eating popcorn was.
Finally they did a separate experiment where they asked people to eat popcorn with their non dominant hand, and turns out people ate less stale popcorn than the fresh ones.
What does this tell us?
That our environment can trigger us into doing automatic behaviours that might not be helpful in bringing us closer to our goals, and that a lack of awareness can increase this behaviour.
Here’s what one researcher said about the findings:
“When we’ve repeatedly eaten a particular food in a particular environment, our brain comes to associate the food with that environment and make us keep eating as long as those environmental cues are present.”
So in this instance, if you know you always reach for popcorn in the evenings whilst watching TV, is it possible that you could have a bowl of fruit there instead?
Experiment in your own home…
I started putting a bowl of fruit by the TV to see what the kids would do and you know what? They started eating all the fruit until it was gone, instead of pestering us for chips and other treats.
What is readily available to us and within reach is going to be what we tend to choose.
While it might be nearly impossible to keep delicious and energy dense foods from entering your house over Christmas, you can always create spaces in your home so that the healthier options are easily available and the fun stuff a little harder to access.
2. Recognise your triggers
While bad habits are hard to break (bummer), good habits are equally hard to break (yay!).
Our brain creates habit loops to help us save time. Quick! Kids are late for school, throw on a coat, grab the keys, put your shoes on, get in the car, start the engine a go!
You likely weren’t aware of what you were doing in all of those stages described above, but you did them, and without much thought because one trigger led to a series of automations, that well….. help us get through life.
Triggers can cause a series of healthy habits and non healthy habits. For example, when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is put my contact lenses in (because I’m blind), I then proceed to brush my teeth.
I don’t have to consciously make the decision to brush my teeth, it happens without my awareness.
So maybe your trigger is being around food. If you know you’re visiting mom over Christmas and there is going to be food in the dining room, maybe remove yourself from the dining room and go and hang out in the living room.
If you know what your triggers are, you can create an action plan instead of automatically going through a sequence of events only to have regrets about it later.
3. Eat slowly
This might sound overly simple but its backed by science. You have a long list hormones that not only help you to digest the food, but also tell your body when it’s full. The average time it takes for the body to recognise that it’s full is 20 minutes!
When you eat fast and shovel food in, your body doesn’t have to time to process the fact that it is eating, and therefore doesn’t realise it is full until you’ve demolished an entire turkey.
This is why we often go from feeling hungry to suddenly full, it’s like the middle part of “oh, I’m no longer hungry and just slightly satisfied” gets bypassed into “I’m so full I need to unbutton my pants”.
4. Use smaller plates
Again, super simple but really effective way of keeping calories down. When you use larger plates, you might be tempted to fill it all the way, even if you don’t plan on eating the whole thing. Once the plate is filled, the expectation to eat everything off the plate is there. Plus who wants to offend the cook.
It’s totally fine to go for seconds and thirds if you want, but at least you’re filling up slowly and hopefully being aware each time you make a trip to fill up your plate.
5. Use hand portions
“How do I know I’m eating enough protein and not too much fats and carbs?” Well I’m glad you asked. There is a really simple strategy of tracking how much food you eat when you’re not at home or out celebrating with family and friends.
Use your hands…
* Image source: Precision Nutrition
If you are a macro tracker and like the idea of weighing your food, this method might seem like an inaccurate way of tracking, however, remember that food labels are off by 30%, so as long as you practice some consistency in the way that you track, it doesn’t really matter which method you choose.
To track using your hands, simply use the size of your palms to gauge how much protein to consume, use your cupped hands for carbs, and use your thumbs for fats.
Eat your vegetables folks
Ok, this one might be a little obvious but I can’t stress enough how important filling your plate up with greens is. And I don’t mean peas, I mean spinach, tomatoes, asparagus, broccoli etc
Over the festive periods I tell my clients to fill half their plates with vegetables.
Start with vegetables, then move on to adding protein, then carbs, then whatever space you have left on your plate, fill that with fats.
Keep it simple and enjoy the celebrations
In 30 years you won’t look back and say “I can’t believe I ate 2 slices of cake over Christmas of 2021”. You’ll think about all the wonderful memories you had with your family, so don’t sweat it.
