5 Surefire Ways to Prevent Weight Gain During the Christmas Holidays

Here is the 5 sure fire ways to help you prevent weight gain before the New Year. This is the busiest period where everybody gets really busy with the Christmas preparation and easily the time many people would fall off the wagon and start gaining weight. People are trading in their workout commitment for more time for Christmas errands and events. Don't let that be you. Why? It is a huge mistake to risk losing the lean muscle mass and strength that you have worked so hard to gain. Your resting metabolism rate accounts for 60-75% of your total daily calorie intake and losing lean muscle mass will actually lower your resting metabolism rate which in turn will cause your body to burn less and less calories day by day. This means that you will be at a greater risk of easily gaining excess weight on your body. Plus, losing the strength will mean your performance will be sub par the next time when you get back to work out and you will find it a lot harder to gain your strength back than to lose it! So should you resign yourself to eminent weight gain that seems to affect everyone? Not really because there are smart and effective ways, both from exercise and daily activities, to help you maintain and stay in tip top shape during the Christmas holidays. Just follow the simple strategies below to prevent the dreadful holiday bloat!

1) Accumulate your workout throughout the day

The number one excuse most people have is not having enough time to do exercise. Often times, people will say they don't even have 20 minutes for exercise. Well no more! When it comes to expending calories, your body cannot recognize difference between 100 squats done in a row or 100 squats done in a day. I'm sure you can get quite a few free moments throughout the day like waiting between the time after you put in the turkey into the oven and taking it out. You will be surprised how many free moments you have in a day that you can sneak in something like 10 squats, 10 burpees, 10 pushups and 10 rows. Using these method throughout the day will lead to big numbers and results in more calorie burning and lean muscle building effects. Have a target! Go for 100 squats, 100 pushups and 100 burpees or something else.

2) Do multi-joint compound movement exercises

Forget about doing all your time-wasting biceps curls, triceps extensions/French curls or shoulder lateral raises. They are termed singled-joint movement exercises because the movement occurs in only one joint. The problem with single-joint exercises is that it would be very time consuming to perform all the single-joint exercises required to get a whole body workout.

3) Perform at least a intense strength training workout once a week

Studies show that one intense strength workout a week is enough to help maintain your current strength and lean muscle mass. For maximum fat burning effects, perform three full body strength training sessions per week and three cardio interval training sessions on non strength-training days.

4) Be on your feet most of the time Stop using all the machines that has made us all incredibly all of shape and overweight. You should still drive to the shopping malls and do your Christmas shopping. But you can certainly find opportunities to burn more calories by parking your car further away from the shopping malls, forgoing the escalators or lifts and walk more on your feet. And carry your own shopping bags for more calories consumption!

5) Engage in more outdoor holiday activities

If you're in the hot summer of Australia, and heading to the beach for some social outing during the Christmas holidays, don't just lie around and drink your booze. Have some fun by bringing a football or volleyball and played some games or just get into the water and have a swim. Talk about burning awesome amount of calories without thinking about it! Or if you're in the cold winter in the northern hemisphere, get into some fun-filled moment snow fight with your friends!