It’s easy to gain a few pounds over the holiday season. You’re seeing family and taking a break from your usual routine, which can make it harder to stick to healthy eating or exercising regularly. And of course, during the winter months everyone is baking yummy desserts, so you’re probably going to be loading up on sweets.
There’s nothing wrong with enjoying yourself over the holidays, but by the time spring rolls around, it’s a good idea to do some spring cleaning – not for your home, although you can do that, too, but for your eating habits. After all, summer’s right around the corner, and that means shirts are coming off. Here’s how you can spring clean your diet and get back into tip-top shape.
Boost Your Water Intake
Let’s start with an easy one – drinking more water. Slacking on water intake is common when it’s colder out, but dehydration is bad for your metabolism and energy levels. You should aim for at least two liters of water per day. Drinking a gallon per day is even better and a good habit to get into. Wondering how you can drink that much water? Set up a water schedule. For example, you could drink one liter every three hours from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and you’ve had your gallon for the day.
Drinking water before meals is also a great idea. It fills up your stomach, helping you eat less.
Add Some Color to Your Diet
With the sun coming out more, fruits and vegetables are plentiful, so you should take advantage. Fruits and vegetables have tons of fiber and vitamins, helping your immune system and keeping you much healthier. To get the best results, include a variety of different colors into your diet, as those colors come from the antioxidants in the food. When you eat different colors of fruits and vegetables, you get more antioxidants than if you stuck to the same things. So instead of just sticking with lettuce, add some carrots and red bell peppers, or anything else you enjoy.
Cut the Processed Foods
You don’t need to do any juice cleanses or fasts, but you should take the processed foods out of your diet. Stick to natural foods without the lengthy ingredient lists of food colorings, preservatives, and unhealthy man-made items. The easiest way to figure out if something is a good choice to eat is by asking yourself if it came out of the ground or from an animal? If not, it’s best to avoid it. When you’re at the grocery store, most of the processed items tend to be near the center aisles, while you can find the healthier, natural foods on the outer edges.
Reduce Your Sugar Intake
One thing you can count on over the holidays is sugar. Friends and family are probably baking cookies, brownies, cakes, and other pastries, and it can be hard to say no.
A sugary snack is fine every now and then, but you should keep those to a minimum. Not only are sweets empty calories that don’t provide you with any nutritional value, but they’re also addictive. That’s why after you have a cookie, you immediately want another one. Too much sugar will cause you to gain weight and can put you at a higher risk of diseases, diabetes in particular. Commit to eliminating sugar from your house this spring. Natural sugars, such as those found in fruits and vegetables, are fine, but everything else needs to go.
Cook Your Own Meals
Instead of going to restaurants or ordering takeout, get in the kitchen and make your own food. You tend to eat fewer calories when you eat at home instead of eating out, and you’ll save quite a bit of money.
One of the reasons people eat out is convenience. To make your own meals without spending too much time in the kitchen every day, cook several days’ worth of food in advance and store it in plastic containers. Then you can just heat it up when you get hungry.
Make Changes Gradually
It’s much more difficult to stick to changes in your eating habits if you make them all at once. You’ll want to go back to your old eating habits, and it will take a considerable amount of willpower to stay the course. You can position yourself better for success by changing your eating gradually. Make one or two adjustments at a time.
Maybe you start by upping your water intake and adding more vegetables to your diet. Once you’ve done that for a week or two and it has become a habit, you start swapping out sugary snacks with fruit. Or you can change one meal at a time to a healthier alternative. As you adjust your eating habits, you’ll notice that you have more energy and feel better throughout the day, which will encourage you to continue making changes.
Getting Ready for Summer
Spring is a great time to clean up your diet and get back into a healthy routine. You can find plenty of fresh produce at the store, and you aren’t being bombarded with new dessert choices every day. With the warmer temperatures and the sunny weather, you can also start hitting the road for runs and bike rides. There’s still plenty of time left until the summer, so if you get started on eating better now, you can make sure that you look and feel great when it’s time to hit the beach.
