Minimize Holiday Weight Gain

If you’re anything like me, you’ve put on a couple of unwanted pounds over Thanksgiving. And there are still many holiday events to come! Now, you could wait until after New Year’s to work off all of the extra weight you’ll gain from holiday indulgence. You certainly don’t want miss out on the good times, including the delicous food and drink! But what if you could minimize the weight gain without depriving yourself? Here is one strategy that will most certainly help:

Build Muscle

If you can commit a couple of days a week to some strength training exercises between now and New Year’s, you can prepare your body to burn off the extra calories more efficiently and minimize your weight gain. Just think about how much more you will enjoy that slice of pie if you put in a little extra work now! Here are some of my favorite workouts that focus on building muscle:

• Plyomix is a great strength training workout. Designed by Ultimate Fighting Champion Matt Hughes, it combines the muscle sculpting power of Plyometrics (or jump training) and Mixed Martial Arts. A common misperception of strength training is that if you’re a woman it will bulk up your muscles. Believe me, this strength training workout won’t. What Plyomix will do is build strength and tone your muscles in a way you never thought possible. You can buy the whole program or you can buy the workouts separately. Try Plyomix Core, which targets your abdominals; Plyomix Power, which tones your butt and thighs; or Plyomix Impact, which strengthens your arms and shoulders.
• Or try the Shape Toning workout, created by the folks at Shape Magazine. It’s divided into three 15-minute segments devoted to three problem areas: abs, butt and thighs, and legs. The best part about this workout is that you can choose which segment you want to do when you want to do it. Even if you do one 15- minute segment a day, you will see results.
• If you like Kathy Smith’s walking program, you will love her Matrix Method Ultimate Sculpt, which combines cardio with strength training. This high intensity interval training will give you maximum results in less time.

The added bonus of downloading any of these workouts is that you can take them with you wherever you go. If you have to travel like I do over the holidays, it’s nice to know that you can bring your workout with you. If you are like me, you hate to get off track with your workouts because it’s so hard to motivate yourself to get back into the swing of a workout routine. By downloading these workouts to my iPod, I can workout for 30 minutes in my hotel room before visiting the family. Not only does it make me feel better mentally it also makes me feel less guilty about eating my sister’s yummy homemade fudge!

If you have any tips to minimize holiday weight gain, we’d love to hear from you! Please share your tips by commenting below.