How To Keep Your Winter Weight Down
If you're like most people, you probably dread winter not only because of the cold and dark, but also because you always seem to hit spring carrying 5 or 10 pounds more than you did in September. This is a universal phenomenon, but there are ways that you can work to keep away the winter weight gain blues.
Probably the biggest problem is the complete lack of physical exercise many people get during winter. Those who are not very active anyway tend to lose even the small amount of activity they did before, and those who were in a regular exercise routine always find it hard to get out of bed or go to the gym through the snow and the dark. Of course, less physical activity means fewer calories burned and less weight lost, or in most cases, more weight gained. But this is something you can avoid easily with a little bit of willpower and some forward planning. Just make sure you have some kind of way of getting regular exercise through the winter, either with some kind of exercise machine at home, an easily accessible gym, or even just running up some stairs at home or in the office. Making a conscious effort to exercise daily, or even every second day, will make a big difference to how you feel and to your dietary success through the winter months.
Along with not moving and not being outdoors much usually comes boredom, which is a well-known weight loss and diet killer. Boredom usually leads to snacking, especially for those of us who have a hard time controlling what we eat. Winter is also accompanied by more TV time which is also often snack time. Rather than try to avoid snacks altogether, you should try to keep plenty of healthy snacks handy, like fruits, nuts and vegetables, and if possible, avoid buying unhealthy ones like chips, ice creams, candy bars and the like. Just making this switch will already make a big difference in your calorie intake.
Winter is a natural time for staying indoors, not moving too much, and eating a lot, and the fact that the holidays come during winter only makes it worse. But you don't have to pack on pounds during winter -- make sure you do even a small amount of regular physical activity, and try to keep your snacks down to a minimum, and make them healthy when you do have one. If you can do these two things, you'll find your winter waistline expansion will be reduced dramatically, and you might even find that you manage to lose some weight just in time for summer.
Probably the biggest problem is the complete lack of physical exercise many people get during winter. Those who are not very active anyway tend to lose even the small amount of activity they did before, and those who were in a regular exercise routine always find it hard to get out of bed or go to the gym through the snow and the dark. Of course, less physical activity means fewer calories burned and less weight lost, or in most cases, more weight gained. But this is something you can avoid easily with a little bit of willpower and some forward planning. Just make sure you have some kind of way of getting regular exercise through the winter, either with some kind of exercise machine at home, an easily accessible gym, or even just running up some stairs at home or in the office. Making a conscious effort to exercise daily, or even every second day, will make a big difference to how you feel and to your dietary success through the winter months.
Along with not moving and not being outdoors much usually comes boredom, which is a well-known weight loss and diet killer. Boredom usually leads to snacking, especially for those of us who have a hard time controlling what we eat. Winter is also accompanied by more TV time which is also often snack time. Rather than try to avoid snacks altogether, you should try to keep plenty of healthy snacks handy, like fruits, nuts and vegetables, and if possible, avoid buying unhealthy ones like chips, ice creams, candy bars and the like. Just making this switch will already make a big difference in your calorie intake.
Winter is a natural time for staying indoors, not moving too much, and eating a lot, and the fact that the holidays come during winter only makes it worse. But you don't have to pack on pounds during winter -- make sure you do even a small amount of regular physical activity, and try to keep your snacks down to a minimum, and make them healthy when you do have one. If you can do these two things, you'll find your winter waistline expansion will be reduced dramatically, and you might even find that you manage to lose some weight just in time for summer.
