This is the time of year for socialising and merriment. Office parties, meeting old friends, family do’s, Christmas day and the subsequent fall out of binge eating and drinking that coincides with all of those occasions. It is not easy for you fat loss ninjas out there who are trying to stave of the ever increasing waistline when faced with such food debauchery. We’re bombarded with mince pies, cake, turkey, roast potatoes, chocolates…….sorry I drifted off for a second! (I do love Christmas dinner).
However, I digress. The point is, it needn’t be the struggle that people find it to be with a few easy good habit applications.
Firstly, Christmas is but one day. Eating a really big roast dinner and some Christmas pud etc. will not make you fat. Especially if you follow a sound eating plan in the first place. Your metabolism will be in a good place and you’ll be able to deal with the extra calories.
In fact, if you don’t really go for constant extra meals, the one big re-feed that is Christmas day will boost your metabolism and you could potentially drop some fat over the subsequent days. The second thing is keep on top of your training. Many people see that it’s dark and cold outside and therefore their gym session is bypassed in favour of an extra big serving of shepherds pie and an episode of corrie. Keep your training as before, or even ramp it up a little to account for the extra influx of calories.
If and when you do go for extracurricular meals, try not to constantly smash the junk food just because it’s there. You can replace a normal meal for junk food meal occasionally if you can control your portions this will have little to no impact on weight gain. Keep an eye on drinking alcohol and binge eating simultaneously. Possibly choose one or the other, my choice is the food!
You may physically gain weight after a few big meals but this I largely to do with extra salt and carb based water retention/gut inflammation. Don’t be suckered into the mistake that as you’re holding water (which you equate as fat) you then adopt the ‘oh well I’m fat now’ mindset and continue to binge eat. Your body will settle back after a day or two with normal eating patterns. The ‘Oh f**k it’ mindset has been studied and people do overeat much more when you feel this way. This will surely lead to extra fat gain.
I maintain that the single worst thing that can happen if you overeat good clean food, is that you may gain some fat. However, the negatives that come with undereating and starving such as: – loss of muscle mass, slower metabolism, increased fat mass, poor hormone function, poor digestion, food cravings, poor skin condition, poor sleep, lack of motivation, low mood, low sexual desire the list goes on. This means you shouldn’t try to offset binge eating and drinking by missing meals and periods of starvation, it does not balance itself.
Therefore, at the very least, if you control your extra junk binges and alcohol, you can at least maintain a constant weight. You can use the extra time off work to increase your workout frequency, and the extra calories consumed would work as a metabolic booster. This means you could actually drop fat over the Christmas period.
There you have it, how to easily mitigate fat gain or even drop fat over the Christmas period. If you’d like any more nutrition advice please contact me via the website.
Merry Christmas from Ali ‘Fat Al’ Stewart and the rest of the team at Fat Al’s Gym
