With the holiday season soon approaching, the majority of people want to look their best without spending numerous hours in the gym or giving up all of their favorite foods.Dropping a few pounds and toning up your body doesn’t mean torture. By doing just a few simple and easy things, that just about anyone can do, you will look and feel better come Christmas time. The first thing that you should do is watch what you eat. This doesn’t mean give everything good up, it simply means eat in moderation. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it starts your metabolism.
A healthy breakfast should consist of fruits, whole grain bread with light butter or peanut butter, egg whites, or a bran cereal like Special K, Raisin Bran, and Multi-Grain Cheerio’s. Also, the milk you use should be no more than percent. Whole milk is fattening. Lunch should be healthy as well. Once again, just because it should be healthy, doesn’t mean it can’t be fast food.
For example, you can order a grilled chicken sandwich with no cheese from Burger King instead of a fried chicken sandwich or Whopper. Better yet, order a grilled chicken salad with a low-fat dressing. Other good ideas for a healthy lunch are turkey sandwiches, tuna, salads, fruits, and vegetables. Dinner should definitely consist of protein. This could be chicken, turkey, fish, steak, ground beef, etc. Add some vegetables and carbohydrates to the protein and you have a healthy dinner. Also, you should have a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack. Good examples of snacks are yogurt, mixed nuts, fruit, granola bars, celery and peanut butter.
Aside from eating healthy, daily exercise is a plus as well. This doesn’t require being in the gym 24 hours, seven days a week. Preferably, one should exercise 3-4 times a week for 20 minutes. This could be running, walking, dancing, skiing, jogging, yoga or anything that gets you moving. One easy way to burn some extra calories is by taking the steps instead of the elevator. By the time you wait for the elevator on the first level of Main Hall to finally come, you could have walked up and down five flights of stairs.
By taking a few extra steps you’ll burn a few more calories. Walk to class instead of driving. When getting dinner, cut out the fries or the dessert.
There’s no need to have an appetizer and dessert. Pick one or the other. Another great calorie cutter is drinking water. Water is the best thing for your body. It is recommended that a person drinks eight glasses of water a day. Although at first your stomach may look bloated, it soon will go away.
Here’s a simple way of looking at it. If you go to the gym, run for 20 minutes, and burn 200 calories, then go home a n d drink a can of soda, you’re gaining back 120 of those calories. If you drank water instead, your thirst would still be quenched without putting any calories into your body.
The above things are just a few ways to lose some weight and cut out some unwanted calories. Only you know your body. Cutting back on the junk food and doing physical activities you will see and feel a difference in your body. Remember, however, that results don’t happen overnight. It takes some time. Whatever you do, don’t get discouraged. All of your efforts will show and you can have the body you want for the holiday season.