5 Thanksgiving Diet Tips To Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

During Thanksgiving and the holidays it can be hard to watch your weight. There are tips, however, that can keep you from overeating and to keep you active. 5 tips for watching your weight will be outlined here so you can feel and look your best even during the times of year where eating a lot is considered normal.

1. Talk More To Your Family

While you’re at the table during a holiday meal, you don’t have to just focus on eating everything in sight. In fact, you can use this time to talk and to eat slowly as you do. Focusing on something besides food is a fantastic way to make the time go by fast without feeling bad about saying you don’t want to join in. When you go slow it helps you to eat less because you will start to feel full faster.

You don’t have to avoid eating altogether during the holidays. There are limits that you need to stick with and people will understand. Before the meal tell the host that you are watching your weight and you’ll be taking it slow. That way, you avoid having them pointing out that you can have more. A lot of the time people eat more and more because they feel obligated to.

2. Schedule A Workout The Morning After

A lot of people spend the night after a big meal resting. While that’s fine, you don’t want to have this period of rest lead to you not doing anything for a few days. That will just lead to your old habits that got you to an unhealthy weight to begin with. Get up early and work off all of that extra food that you know is going to lead to weight gain!

Creating goals will help you stay at a healthy weight even if you slip up and have too much for dinner once or twice a year. Make a plan that says if you have a Thanksgiving feast, you will hit the gym the next day for at least an hour or two. Look up what you’ll have to do to burn calories equal to what was on your plate. When you have to work off the excess it can make it easier to just say no to overindulging.

3. Eat A Healthy Snack Before A Thanksgiving Feast

It’s not a bad idea to eat a healthy and filling snack before the big meal. There is nothing wrong with having smaller portions. If you are asked why you’re not going to town at the table you can just say you’re watching your weight. You may not want to say that you ate beforehand because if someone worked hard on the meal that may be seen as rude.

Lots of people are on diets, and you can’t let people make you feel obligated to eat too much. It can be easy to slip up and revert back to habits you thought you had under control. There is nothing wrong with telling someone you just weren’t all that hungry and that you’d like to take some of it home with you instead. Then you can eat smaller portions on your own time and keep up with your diet.

4. Offer To Assist With Cleaning And Chores

Once you’ve had your meal you probably will want to find a way to avoid having seconds or more than that. It’s okay to excuse yourself and to start working on cleaning up a little. You can go around to each person and grab what they are done with and then offer to fill their plates again. That way, you are able to hang around for a while longer while people finish up, but you won’t have the opportunity to keep eating.

5. Avoid Putting Yourself In Difficult Situations

Were you invited to more than one Thanksgiving or holiday related meal? Learn to say no and that you are busy. You can also tell them that you can meet up with everyone later on so you’re not stuck in a situation where you have to participate in having food. Once you tell others that you’re busy a few times they should get the picture. Be honest about why you don’t want to go and that should work.

You’re someone that has control over their diet and nobody can force feed you anything. There may be a few hurt feelings if you don’t seem too into what you’re eating during the holidays, but that’s better than the alternative. If you’ve been overweight before or still are, then people will know that you are trying to diet and that they need to respect that. You don’t have to stay somewhere if you don’t feel comfortable with people pressuring you.

These 5 Thanksgiving diet tips will keep you from overdoing it during the holidays. Anyone that wants to watch their weight has to be careful during this time of the year. Why undo all of the work you’ve done when you don’t have to?

5 Celebrities and their BMIs

Is It A Numbers Game?

There is plenty of cash to go around in the celebrity world when it comes to hiring private chefs and personal trainers. All of the hottest in Hollywood will have all of the tools at their disposal to be the picture of health. If you happen to judge celebrities and their fitness on their body mass index, or BMI, you may just find that the numbers are going to paint a whole different story.

The BMI takes a look at both weight and height to measure the fat on a person’s body. This number places you in one of four broad categories, which include underweight at 18.5 or lower, normal weight at 18.5 to 24.9, overweight at 25 to 29.9 and then obese at 30 and up. There are some life insurance companies that will also look at measurements of BMI to determine the cost of coverage. However, can this really be an accurate measurement of your body’s composition?

Some Numbers Do Not Add Up

If you are an athlete that has a lot of lean muscle mass, the BMI measurement can be a bit misleading as the scale will not differentiate between fat and muscle. This will mean that all of the top sports stars in the world will be classified as being overweight. However, ever the actors that are the trimmest, especially those that are short, will not be immune to confusing classifications of BMI.

When asking top nutrition experts about BMI and testing celebrities, the studies have shown variations that lead to a great deal of confusion. Looking at photographs of celebrities and keeping height in mind, these are the best answers that the experts could give on a weight estimate. Some are rumored to use waist trimmers as well as good overall diet and exercise.

Angelina Jolie – estimated BMI of 17.9

This is a celebrity mother of six who is always staying lean by chasing around her family. Measuring with a height of 5’8″, experts guess that she probably weighs in at about 118 lbs. A lot of people will often envy her accomplishments and her beauty, the estimated BMI that she has of 17.9 could suggest that she would make a better role model if she were able to gain some weight.

 

Arnold Schwarzenegger – estimated BMI of 30.8

As a former body builder, the Terminator star is often looked upon as being the ultimate post child for fitness. However, looking at his BMI charting, Arnold comes in as being obese. This actor stands at about 6’2″ and the experts guesstimate that he weighs around 240 lbs, which brings him to a super high body mass index of 30.8

It goes without saying that Schwarzenegger shouldn’t run right out to sign up for a program to lose weight just yet. All of the muscle mass on his body can bring about a BMI that is misleading.

 

 

 

Beyone – estimated BMI of 21

This songstress known for “Bootylicious” and a vast amount of other number one hits is often called curvy by all of the tabloids. However, by BMI standards, she is proportioned just right. Experts seem to think that Beyonce is about 130 lbs and she has a height of 5’6″ to give her a BMI of around 21, which is right inside of the normal range.

Tom Cruise – estimated BMI of 26

While he may not be scaling a lot of mountains in his latest movies, there is seemingly nothing wrong with Cruise’s physique. Or is

12-13-10 Vancouver, Canada
Actor Tom Cruise on the set of ‘Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol’ in Vancouver Canada. In the scene Tom was filming in the back of a truck and even had to eat his lunch in the truck…

there?

Measuring at a height of 5’7″, the actor weighs about 166 lbs and has a BMI of around 26, which is actually considered to be overweight by BMI standards.

Tony Romo – estimated BMI of 28.8

No matter what you think about his performance while he is on the field, it is hard to think that Romo’s body is anything less than perfect. If you look at the BMI standards, however, this Dallas Cowboys quarterback is looked at as being very overweight. With a height of 6’2″ and a weight of about 224 lbs, the BMI of 28.8 would make it look as though he should lose weight.

As you can see, the numbers that you will have with a BMI chart can be subjective and you need to look at a number of components to make a determination.

Does intermittent fasting for weight loss work?

There are a lot of different ways to lose weight. Whether it involves a specific diet or fitness routine, you should be able to achieve your desired goals in a variety of ways. With that being said, losing weight does take a lot of dedication and effort to control your appetite. One of the more popular methods lately has been the process of intermittent fasting. This way of eating involves taking short term breaks from food (fasting). Fasting for short periods of time can help people in a variety of ways. In this article, we will be going over some of the different methods and how they can help you achieve better results in your weight loss efforts.

Methods Of Intermittent Fasting:

1. Eat-Stop-Eat.

This particular method involves doing either 1 or 2 different 24 hour fasts every single week. For instance, you would eat on a regular schedule for the entire week except for 1 or 2 days. On those days, you would skip dinner and not break your fast until dinner time the next day. Thus, giving you a complete 24 hour break from eating.

2. Ratio Diet.

Another popular method of intermittent fasting for weight loss is the ratio diet. With this style, you would consume food and calories in normal volume as you would if you weren’t on any kind of diet at all for 5 days of the week. On the other 2 days, you would simply limit your caloric intake to around 500 calories. This is essentially going to shock your system each day that you consume fewer calories and give your body a break from digestion.

3. Skip Breakfast.

This particular method involves skipping breakfast every single day and instead eating solely in an 8 hour time period from mid-day to around 7 to 8 at night.

As long as you are not eating more than you should throughout these periods, you should be able to reduce the amount of calories that you consume each day and/or week and it will ultimately help lead to weight loss.

How Intermittent Fasting Helps You Reduce Calories and Lose Weight?

According to many studies, intermittent fasting is able to lead to significant amounts of weight loss. In fact, it was found to be able to effectively reduce body weight by around 3 to 8% over a single period of 3 to 24 weeks. This is primarily because intermittent fasting generally leads to a reduction in caloric intake not necessarily from the actual implementation of it, but your body becomes so used to working without the same amount of calories which makes it’s processes much more effective and efficient. Thus, it ends up making you require much less calories than you normally would which can reduce the amount of calories that you consume on a daily and weekly basis.

How To Implement It Effectively?

When it comes to intermittent fasting, you want to make sure that you are not overthinking the entire thing. There are several things that you are going to want to keep in mind when you are looking to implement this kind of method into your lifestyle.

1. Food Quality.

One of the primary things to keep mindful is the food quality. Ideally, you are going to want to consume high quality foods. The quality of foods you eat are still going to be important. Thus, you should make a concerted effort to consume whole and single ingredient foods for the best results.

2. Calories.

While caloric restriction is not necessary a staple of intermittent fasting, if you are looking to lose weight, you might want to be mindful of how many you are consuming on a daily basis on non-fast days or time periods. Calories still count when you are implementing this kind of idea into your life. This means that you should be attempting to eat normally during the periods in which you are not fasting.

3. Consistency.

When it comes to intermittent fasting, it is important to maintain the same kind of consistency that anything else would require. You will need to stick with this weight loss method if you want it to actually work.

4. Maintain Patience.

When it comes to implementing any kind of weight loss routine into your life, it is also important to maintain a good amount of patience. Patience is one of the best qualities that you can have when it comes to having success with any kind of weight loss objective/goal.

In the end, intermittent fasting is easily one of the best things that you can implement into your routine if you want to achieve success with weight loss. The fact is, this kind of fasting is going to allow you the opportunity to achieve great success with your weight loss efforts if you maintain a consistent approach. Be sure to do this and you should be able to do so with one of these methods.

5 Ways to Control Your Appetite and Prevent Overeating

Overeating is a common problem affecting millions of people across the world, whether they are overweight or not. The majority of these folks tend to overeat when they are under some kind of stress or anxiety. They ignore the physical signs of satiation when they suffer from these mental states. This is why binge eating is not only a physical problem but an emotional issue too. Fortunately, there are a few important steps to stop binge eating by controlling your appetite. This article provides information on 5 ways of controlling your appetite and preventing overeating.

1. Eat Your Breakfast – You may have already heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. A high protein breakfast will provide the energy to keep us full until lunch time. It helps improve your concentration at work and school and prevent binge eating on snacks high in sugar and fat before lunch time. A recent study found that people who skip breakfast tend to be more overweight and possess elevated fasting lipid concentrations. It will leave them prone to overeating during the rest of the day which will enhance their risk of obesity-related illnesses.

2. Fiber Curbs Hunger – If you feel too hungry when you sit down for a meal, you tend to overeat. The best way to deal with this problem is to fill up yourself with fiber-rich vegetables before you start eating any other type of food. You can use fiber-rich vegetables as a pre-meal appetizer to control your appetite and prevent overeating during the main course. Fiber fills up you and prevents overeating.

3. Use A Small Plate – A 2006 study found that people tend to serve themselves based on the size of their plates. People served and consumed a larger amount of cereals when they were given large plates compared to people who were given smaller plates. Although it may sound like playing tricks with your mind, rest assure that it is for a good cause. In fact, portion size is a key factor when it comes to preventing family members from overeating at family dinners.

4. Mindful Eating – Mindful eating techniques are important to prevent overeating. It includes pacing yourself at meals and avoiding doing anything that distracts you during mealtimes. If you sit in front of the television or computer while you eat, it can interfere with your ability to perceive portion sizes. This will eventually result in overeating. Studies have shown that people who eat fast without chewing their food don’t allow their brains to recognize the flavor. This delays your brain from sending a signal that you are really full. In fact, you need to spend at least twenty minutes per meal and chew the food properly prior to swallowing it. This helps prevent any overeating issues during mealtimes.

5. Healthy Snacks – When uncontrollable hunger pangs set in, make sure you indulge in a healthy snack. A healthy snack such as fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins will help prevent food cravings. You should replace sugary drinks and juices with water which is one of the best ways to feel full without extra calories. In fact, the more you consume addictive foods such as carbohydrate, fat, salt, and sugar, the more your body will clamor for them. Making a habit of consuming healthy snacks when hunger pangs set in will help you cut down on binge eating. This will help control your appetite and prevent overeating.

Mike Eustice

Mike Eustice is bes student in the A. James Clark School of Engineering. Also he is a senior materials science & engineering undergraduate that is currently a co-op at Unilever working in quality assurance at a personal care plant. He is currently, on the Student Success Leadership Council of the Maryland University.