Let’s admit it – the holidays are a terrible time for weight loss, between all the parties, the rich dinners and the holiday treats.
Lucky for you, there are some simple strategies you can use to help keep some of the extra pounds off this holiday season.
1. Workout before a big meal or party
Do you ever feel guilty after eating a ton of junk food at a holiday party, or after a big holiday meal? The truth is, you don’t have to. In fact, strategic gorging on food, even somewhat unhealthy food, can help you build muscle and lose weight.
The best way to do this is by eating healthy during the rest of the week, and when the day of the party arrives, make sure to get a strenuous workout in right before the party. This makes muscle tissue more sensitive to the hormone insulin, while simultaneously making fat cells less sensitive to insulin. This means that the food you consume immediately after a strenuous workout is preferentially used to build and repair muscle tissue, and less likely to be stored away as fat.
Bonus tip – consume a casein protein shake with chia seeds right after the workout and prior to the party. Casein is a type of protein that is very slow digesting, helping to curb hunger. Chia seeds absorb moisture and expand in the stomach, also helping to create a feeling of fullness. The net result is less food consumed at the party without feeling like you’re depriving yourself. If you’re a vegan or sensitive to dairy products, use a quality hemp protein powder.
2. Drink Smart
Choose your holiday libations wisely. The higher in sugar your alcoholic drink is, the more likely you are to put on the weight.
Worst offenders – spiked eggnog, beer, sweet wines and sugary mixed drinks.
Middle of the road – Dry white and red wines, and low sugar cocktails (think a martini)
Best bets – clear liquors with soda water and a lime/lemon. Think a vodka and soda, gin and soda, etc. Straight liquors, liquors on the rocks, as well as watered down liquors are great options too, such as a bourbon and water or a bourbon neat.
Bonus Tip – Use a good antioxidant to help prevent hangovers. My favorites for this purpose are astaxanthin and CoQ-10, 4 mg and 400 mg per every 2-3 drinks, respectively. Both of these are powerful antioxidants that make it to the brain to help mitigate some of the damage caused by alcohol consumption.
You can also use L-Theanine at the end of the night to speed up the rate the body breaks down alcohol, and promote a deeper sleep. And remember to hydrate!
3. Keep your stress levels down
I personally find holiday shopping to be the bane of my existence. Holiday shopping can be pretty stressful, and unfortunately all that extra stress leads to weight gain.
Excess stress makes you gain weight due to a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol has many necessary functions within the body – however, when your body releases cortisol in excess in response to stress, your body begins to store extra fat, especially around the midsection.
Good thing there are a few ways to help keep excess cortisol in check.
Ashwagandha – Ashwagandha is one of the best ways to reduce stress and lower cortisol, and it’s easy as just popping a few pills. This 2012 study showed that
“Ashwagandha root extract exhibited a significant reduction in scores on all the stress-assessment scales on Day 60, relative to the placebo group. The serum cortisol levels were substantially reduced in the Ashwagandha group, relative to the placebo group.”
Ashwagandha also increases levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which helps protect brain cells, helps the brain make new connections between neurons (leading to faster learning and better memory retention), and is also a potent anti-depressant. Add to this the fact ashwagandha improves thyroid functioning, which is one of the main endocrine glands in charge of your metabolism, and is an aphrodisiac, and you have one hell of an herb. This patented, full-spectrum extract of ashwagandha is only $14.
Yoga has been proven time and again to be a very effective way to reduce stress. This study shows that it was more effective than medication in both reducing cortisol and in its antidepressant effects – and it’s free.
Phosphatidylserine is another natural supplement that is proven to reduce cortisol, though is a bit more expensive than ashwagandha.
4. Don’t eat or drink 2-3 hours before bed time
Did you know that you can burn fat while you sleep? Keep your dinner light, low in carbs and make sure to have it 2-3 hours before your normal bedtime.
Leptin is a hunger-suppressing, fat-burning hormone that is naturally released sometime around sunset. However, leptin won’t be released if there is insulin in the bloodstream, and insulin is released in response to food intake, especially carbs. This is why dinner should be light, early and low in carbs, to make sure insulin has cleared the bloodstream in time for leptin to be released.
Insulin also hampers the release of another fat-burning hormone called adiponectin, released soon after sunset. Then around midnight, leptin enters a region of the brain that signals for the body to start burning fat for energy and to increase thyroid output – but only if insulin hasn’t been hanging around.
Bonus tip – keep breakfast low in carbs too. Cortisol is highest in the morning, which acts like a natural caffeine to help us wake up. But don’t forget that cortisol is also a powerful fat-storing hormone as well.
Because cortisol increases fat storage, it’s best to make your breakfast low in carbs, instead having a healthy mix of protein, low-carb, high-fiber veggies/fruits, and with a small to moderate amount of fat.
Think an omelet with onions, mushrooms and peppers, a smoothie with berries, chia seeds, protein powder and unsweetened almond milk, or even a breakfast salad.
5. Lose weight with just 4 minutes per day
Anything that promises weight loss within such a short period of time is usually a massive red flag that it’s a complete marketing gimmick. For once, this appears to not be the case.
Tabata training is method of high intensity interval training (HIIT) that is completed in just four minutes.
How can only a four minute workout improve fitness and help you lose weight? To sum it up in one sentence – It’s a bitch.
Tabata involves eight rounds of 20 seconds of all-out effort exercise with 10 seconds rest. The key word here is all-out effort – if at the end of the eight rounds you feel you could do more, you weren’t going hard enough.
What would this look like in the gym? Hop on a stationary bike, and spend a few minutes getting warmed up. After five minutes or so, go all-out sprinting on the bike for 20 seconds. Then pedal lightly for 10 seconds, followed by another all-out sprint for 20 seconds, and then 10 seconds of light pedaling. That’s one minute, and two rounds.
At this point, if you’re new to this type of training, take a minute’s rest. Then do another two rounds of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, followed by another minute’s rest. Complete only 8 rounds, for a total of four minutes of active exercise.
If you’re in really good shape or have already been doing this protocol for a few weeks, feel free to try to go the whole four minutes without any minute long breaks.
As you can tell from the graph above from the original study, the group that did 6 weeks of hour long endurance training hardly improved in anaerobic capacity, while the Tabata interval training group improved drastically – with only 4 minutes of active work each day.
I don’t suggest Tabata training to be your only method of exercise, but during the busy holiday season, it’s a great way to squeeze in a workout when you otherwise wouldn’t be able to.
Looking for other ways to lose weight?