11/23/11

Keeping the fat off during the Holidays...


We all love the holidays; filled with family, friends, laughing, and delicious meals.   However we all worry about the extra added pounds that comes along with the holidays.  Of course we come to Xtend to exercise regularly to keep ourselves active and healthy; but here are a couple tips you could also be doing to help keep off those little extras. 


1. Drink two glasses of water thirty minutes before you eat a meal. Not only will this help you feel fuller before you start to eat but drinking water before a meal also increases the production of stomach acid which will help you digest your food better.
2. Use spice more frequently with food. Spicy foods such as cayenne, peppers, cumin,
pepper, etc can slow the rate of sugar entering the bloodstream and increase the amount of calories burned in response to a meal.
3. Increase your fiber intake during the holidays. Use PaleoFiber because it is excellent
in lowering both blood sugar and insulin levels which are going to rise up due to eating heavier, more carbohydrate laden holiday meals.
4. Eat vinegar before each meal. Vinegar helps to decrease blood sugar and insulin
responses to a very starchy meal. When you eat vinegar before a meal your blood sugar and insulin levels don’t rise up as much. The simplest way to do this is to take about a shots worth of vinegar right before you eat or add that amount onto your salad.
5. Drink fresh squeezed lemon juice before a meal. This has much the same properties as does vinegar for lowering your blood sugar and insulin response to a high starch meal. You can drink a third of a cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice directly or put this amount onto your salad.
6. If you are going to eat deserts during this season, choose ones that contain berries or cinnamon. Cinnamon helps to regulate blood sugar and insulin levels and berries are very low on the glycemic index scale and help to stimulate fat loss and slow weight gain from a high fat meal.
7. Make sure to drink green tea when consuming high fat meals. Green tea has been
demonstrated to decrease the absorption of fat and to increase fat loss by stimulating fat burning genes. If you are caffeine sensitive of course be careful here, but other than that there is really no downside to drinking green tea often.
8. Remember to eat slowly. As mouthwatering as those holiday foods are, if you take the time to chew each mouthful twenty to thirty times you will significantly decrease the amount of food you eat. Eating this slowly gives your body a chance to become more satisfied, resulting in less desire to overeat or stuff ourselves.
9. While eating a meal and when you burp for the first time, it’s time to stop eating.
Burping is the body’s natural way of telling us that it is full or close to it and going any further will just result in us reaching the “stuffed” zone.
10. Exercise one hour before eating a big meal. This way when you do consume a high fat/carbohydrate laden meal, some of those calories consumed will go into building muscle instead of storing as fat.
Happy Holidays!