Our weight calculations are heavily influenced by the holiday season because many of us overeat in the final week of the year, often carrying extra weight, before making a resolution to lose all of our excess weight in the new year.
Start your weight loss journey a few months before the holiday season to allow yourself a few cheat days. This is the smarter choice.
What is this strategy's best feature? You will be able to start the new year with your fitness goals already accomplished, which will give you the confidence to focus on all of your other goals and give you the assurance that comes with success.
In the remainder of this article, we will discuss a few straightforward actions you can take to gradually, safely, and effectively lose weight over the course of two months. Rather than trying to force yourself to lose a lot of weight in a short amount of time, this is a much better strategy.
Additionally, the built-in reward that will make it worthwhile is the holiday season.
Therefore, let's begin with a brief review: which activities are you reducing?
Understanding that everyone is unique in terms of how well they are performing particular tasks is essential before you begin, even though there are some fundamental principles that are applicable to everyone.
You must assess your position in relation to the following metrics.
Recovery and Sleep Do you get enough good sleep? You must increase this to at least seven hours per day if it is consistently less than six. If you don't get enough sleep, everything you've done to cut calories and exercise will be in vain. A sleep monitor like the Fit bit Charge 5 is a good investment because it helps you track your sleep fairly accurately.
The same goes for reducing stress: if your job is stressful, schedule in a couple of five-minute breaks to practice mindfulness.
Look into how to master your breathing during your post-workout cool down if you are already working hard (you are warming up before and cooling down after working out, right?)to speed up recovery
Habits of Eating How much and what you eat is the single most important aspect of recovery after sleep, stress, and training.
You will need to master two things if you want to follow any diet, including pales, OMA D (one meal a day), intermittent fasting, Keto, low-carb, flexible macros, or any other diet.
Consistency For the next two months, adhere to the protocol to an accuracy of 90%. For instance, if you are doing intermittent fasting, I would recommend that you practice it for the first week using a 16:8 diet before switching to an 18:6 diet for the second week.
Starting in the third week, I would like you to try a once-a-week 24-hour fast with a cheat meal to build discipline and allow for occasional rewards and opportunities to rev up the metabolism.
Simply put, start simple, cultivate discipline, and then increase complexity iteratively.
Meal Planning In the spirit of simplicity, the key to weight loss is replacing choice with contentment. Eliminating the decision-making process for what you eat is the most sure-fire way to lose weight. Choose a few healthy meals (for each meal) from your favourite foods and simply follow them week in and week out. Choose foods that you can eat three to four times a week, so you don't have to choose between options you don't like.
This year, a few repeatable meals could mean the difference between achieving your goals and falling short due to analysis paralysis.
Caloric Deficit Throughout it all, the fundamental idea will be to maintain a caloric deficit.
For a gradual two-month program, I typically suggest starting with a small deficit—perhaps 250 calories per day—to make it easier for your body to stick to the plan in the beginning. It is possible to have a higher deficit, which we will discuss later, but starting small will help you develop discipline.
You can increase the deficit to 500 calories per day after the first few weeks, depending on whether you are seeing results. However, consistency throughout the two-month period will always be important.
Calorie restriction is much simpler than you might imagine. For instance:
For a more than 200-calorie deficit, switch to black coffee if you drink two cappuccinos per day.
If you like two 16 ounces. Cans of soda—if you switch to sugar-free soda, you'll lose 300 calories.
Are you a frequent smacker? Depending on how much you snack, giving up snacks can often result in a deficit of between 200 and 400 calories.
A simple 100-200 calorie deficit can be achieved by reducing a meal by 25%.
As you continue, you will realize that you can easily incorporate a 250-500 calorie deficit into your eating routine without making life very difficult for yourself.
You can also practice moving from a 250-calorie deficit to a 500-calorie deficit after the first few weeks; however, you should experiment with this number within that range to determine what works best for you.
Exercise: If you already exercise, great! We can look into ways to make it better.
If you are sedentary, increasing your daily activity by 15 to 30 minutes and maintaining the above-mentioned caloric deficit will greatly assist you in losing weight.
When it comes to exercise, simplicity and consistency are important. Engage in activities that you enjoy doing on a regular basis, preferably every day, for at least 15 minutes (up to 30/60/120 minutes per day). Except for what you have time for, there is no real limit. And unless you're training for a sport, you really don't need to run two hours a day.
Here is a useful list of exercises that burn a lot of calories in a minute. Choose a few that you like and can learn or handle, and you can do them separately or together every day.
Don't fall into the trap of exercising on "off" days at this point; you can change the activity, but you won't need to take a "break" often. If nothing else works, a 30-minute walk is just as effective as 5 to 10 minutes of jumping rope, if only to keep you consistent.
If you look at the calories burned by exercises above, you will notice that exercise will only help you burn an additional 150-300 calories in most cases, or 400-600 calories if you work out hard for an hour.
In contrast, it doesn't take much time or effort to consume 300 or 600 calories.
Make exercise a supplement to your weight loss efforts rather than a replacement.
What to Expect: If you follow the tips above, you should be able to lose anywhere from half a pound to a pound every week. Weight loss can begin quickly before tapering off, or it can begin slowly and then pick up speed later.
What matters is how consistently you work toward your goal; if you do this, you will soon be able to enjoy the holidays and reach your fitness goals in the new year.
That is a wonderful way to begin the new year.
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