The holiday season has a significant impact on our weight calculations since many of us overeat in the last week of the year even though we are already carrying additional weight with the intention of losing it all in the new year.
The wiser course of action is to begin your weight loss journey a few months prior to the holiday season, allowing you to indulge in one or two cheat days throughout the festivities.
What aspect of this tactic works best? Your fitness goals will be completed when the new year begins, and that success will give you the assurance you need to attack all of your other objectives with focus and the assurance that comes with success.
The remainder of this article examines a few straightforward actions you may take to lose weight over the course of two months gradually, securely, and successfully. This is a much better strategy than attempting to force yourself to drop a lot of weight quickly.
The built-in reward that will make it worthwhile is the holiday season.
Consequently, let’s begin with a brief overview. What are you doing less of?
Prior to getting started, it’s critical to realize that while there are some universally applicable fundamentals, everyone differs in terms of how effectively they perform particular tasks.
Consider where you stand in relation to the subsequent measures.
Rest and Recovery
Are you getting enough wholesome slumber? You should increase this to at least seven hours a day if it is routinely less than six. All of your other efforts (calorie restriction, exercise) will be in vain if you lose sleep. Purchasing a sleep monitor, such as the Fitbit Charge 5, that allows you to measure your sleep fairly precisely is a smart idea.
In the same way, if your job is demanding, schedule a few five-minute mindfulness breaks throughout the day to help you decompress.
If you already train hard, consider learning how to control your breathing during your post-workout cooldown (you warm up before working out, right?) to maximize recuperation.
Eating Patterns
How much you eat is the single most crucial component after recovery (sleep, stress, and exercise) (and what you eat).
Regardless of the type of diet you choose to follow, whether it be Paleo, OMAD (one meal a day), intermittent fasting, keto, low-carb, flexible macros, or anything else, you must become proficient in two areas:
Consistency
For the next two months, adhere to the protocol with 90% accuracy. For instance, if you are practicing intermittent fasting, I would like you to practice IF at a 16:8 protocol for the first week before converting to an 18:6 protocol the following week.
I would advise you to start experimenting with a once-weekly 24-hour fast, along with a cheat meal, to strengthen your resolve while also allowing for occasional treats and chances to rev up your metabolism.
In other words, start off easy, establish discipline, and gradually add complexity.
Meal Choices
Speaking of simplicity, replacing choice with contentment is the key to weight loss. Eliminating your ability to choose what you eat is the best method to lose weight for good. Choose a few nutritious meals (per meal time) from the foods you enjoy eating and simply eat them every single week. Choose items you could eat three or four times a week rather than having to choose between ones you don’t like.
This year, a few recurring meals could mean the difference between achieving your goals and succumbing to analysis paralysis.
Energy Deficiency
Maintaining a calorie deficit will be the guiding premise in all of this.
I typically advise beginning a progressive two-month program with a tiny deficit – perhaps 250 calories per day at most – to allow your body to easily keep to it in the beginning. Although a larger deficit is feasible (and we’ll get to it eventually), starting small will encourage discipline-building.
Depending on whether you are seeing results or not after the first few weeks, you can increase the shortfall to 500 calories each day. However, the most important thing is to stay consistent over the course of the two-month period.
Caloric restriction is simpler than you would imagine. For instance:
If you drink two cappuccinos every day, switch to black coffee to reduce your calorie intake by at least 200.
If you typically drink two 16-ounce sodas, switching to a sugar-free version will put you in a 300-calorie deficit.
Are you a frequent snacker? Depending on how frequently you eat snacks, giving them up can result in a 200–400 calorie deficit.
You might easily create a 100–200 calorie deficit by cutting a meal by 25%.
As you continue, you’ll see how simple it may be to include a 250–500 calorie deficit into your eating routine without putting too much of a strain on yourself.
After the first few weeks, you can practice increasing your calorie deficit from 250 to 500, but experiment with this figure within that range to find what works best for you.
Exercise Great! If you currently exercise, let’s look at ways to make it better.
If you are sedentary, increasing your daily activity by 15 to 30 minutes will help you lose weight much more quickly when combined with the calorie deficit suggested above.
Perform simple, enjoyable activities for at least 15 minutes (and up to 30/60/120 minutes per day) that you can do consistently (ideally everyday). Consistency and simplicity are key factors in exercising. There isn’t really an upper limit other than your available time. And unless you’re practicing for a sport, you really don’t need to run for two hours every day.
Here is a list of quick workouts that will help you lose weight. Choose a few that you enjoy and are able to perform on a regular basis. You can alternate between them or perform them all at once.
Avoid the trap of taking “vacation” days from exercise at this point. You can switch up your workout routine, but you hardly ever need a “break.” If all else fails, a 30-minute stroll will be just as effective as five to ten minutes of jumping rope, if only to keep you motivated.
You’ll see from reading the list of calories expended by exercises above that, for the most part, exercise will only help you burn an additional 150–300 calories, or perhaps 400–600 if you’re working out hard for an hour.
In comparison, it doesn’t take much time or effort to consume 300 or 600 calories.
Use exercise as a supplement, not as a substitute for weight loss.
How to Prepare
You might easily lose half a pound to a pound and a half per week by adhering to the above-mentioned principles. Weight reduction may begin slowly and then pick up speed later on, or it may start slowly and then accelerate.
It is important to remain persistent in your efforts to reach your objective; if you do, you will soon be able to take advantage of the Christmas season and arrive at or surpass your fitness goals by the start of the new year.
That’s a great way to kick off the new year.
