That is right, TODAY, is always the best day to start a diet. The traditional way to diet is to start on January 2nd. The problem is that most of us will gain significant weight between Thanksgiving and New Years. Here is how that works.
There are 35 days from Thanksgiving to New Years.
An average serving of holiday extra is between 300 and 500 calories. A holiday candy bar is 350 calories. The eggnog latte I’m having this morning is 440 calories. Mashed potatoes and gravy is 500 calories. Christmas cookies are 400 calories.
Using 400 calories as a daily average, eating one holiday treat a day for 35 days is 14,000 calories. Your body turns calories into weight at about 3,000 calories per pound. So putting off your diet until January 2nd, means that you likely will start your diet almost five pounds heavier than you weight today. Ouch!!
You can avoid that by starting your 2014 diet today, by taking steps to prevent weight gain for the rest of the year. And here are three practical ways to do that. Each of these will save you between 300 and 400 calories per day.
1. Walk 30 minutes a day. 30 minutes a day is pretty easy to do if you multitask. Talk on the phone daily? Find a way to walk while you do it. Need something at the local store? Walk instead of drive. Each lunch at work? Walk while you eat. Watch a TV show that really isn’t that good? Use that time to walk for the rest of the year.
2. Use smaller plates. Research has shown that one of the ways we judge how much to eat is how big it is on the plate. Use smaller plates and you will eat less. This is even more effective if you serve your food at the kitchen counter and then eat it elsewhere. Having to get up to refill your plate will cause you to eat less. You can even use smaller plates for holiday dinners!! Shocking!
3. Take half a desert. Then go back and get more if you really want it. You will be amazed at how many times you will not go back for the second helping. Another alternative is to never get that second helping yourself, always ask your spouse or kids to get it for you. Having to ask will decrease the number of times you ask for seconds.
Once you have decided what to do here is a way to increase the likelihood you will follow through. Take a piece of lined paper and draw three equally spaced vertical lines. This will make four columns. In the left hand column, put all the dates between now and January 2nd. At the top of the other three columns write down the three things you will do to change your eating for the rest of the year. They can be the ideas above or your own ideas.
Each night, before you go to bed make a check mark, on the steps you did that day. You won’t do all three items every day. There will be some days you don’t do any of them. But the discipline of having to report on yourself increase the likely hood that you will follow through. And as you move through the weeks, the list of checks will build your confidence and inspire you to eat reasonably.
Here’s to a jump start on a healthy 2014
Bruce
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