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“Have your cake and eat it too(Spano 66)!”

Did you overeat this holiday season? I bet you eat all of the sweet potatoes, yams, buttered pees, cakes, cookies, and chocolates in sight. Did you completely forget about your diet? Some people say the holidays are my time to treat myself for all the hard work I have put into being healthy. Personally, the holiday season is my weakness for eating very fattening foods. I will diet a month before Thanksgiving just because I know I’m going to consume enough carbs to feed an army. Then, afterwards trying to jump right back into that harsh diet is not so easy after eating all the treats your heart could desire. So, what if I told you there was an alternative plan to your overeating this holiday season. Wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy all those desserts and cupcakes and not feel guilty?

METHODS

First, let’s discuss meal skipping and fasting!

• Warrior diet- eating for four hours and not eating for 20.

• Every other day diet- eat 500 calories one day and splurging the next day or skipping food all together for 24hrs once or twice a week.

• Five-two diet- eats normally for five days without overeating, and then eats 30% of what you would typically eat on the other two days.

 

There are other ways to achieve the same type of diets listed above but all are considered a way of fasting. Partial or full restriction of eating is considered a common interminitive fasting technique.

Does fasting seem like a harsh process? If you think about it, you are consistently fasting without even realizing it. For examples:

 

• You don’t eat when you’re sleeping.

• You don’t eat at all after consuming a dinner meal.

• You don’t eat at all after a meal until the morning of the next day.

• Skipping lunch time helps with cutting down calories. Or vice versa, skipping dinner to cut back calories consumed from other meals during the day.

 

These methods are helpful tips to help navigate your diet plans during this holiday season. They can also help with easing the mind of consuming some of those overcarbed foods. (Spano 68)

BENEFITS

The benefits of discipline eating are simple. Think about when you were younger. Your parents probably served you exact portions of all your food groups at certain times throughout the day. When we grow up and get pushed into adulthood our eating seems to not be a priority. We may fit in it when we can or eat on the go with our new busy lifestyle. Problem with this is we are not always watching what we are consuming. Be careful to still give your body all of its necessary food groups and drink water on a regular basis. In the end, this will help with your body’s responses to over consuming food and how your body breaks response. So, over that holiday season your body will notify you when it is full and you are less likely to over consume all those goodies. (Spano 69)

DRAWBACKS

A lot of people have lost weight from fasting but there are definite problems with this type of approach. Think about it in this way, if you are fasting while training you will lose weight by cutting calories but you will later gain the weight back in muscle. If you fast for 20 hours a day, chances are your body will break down the muscle with fat to meet your energy demands. This is unhealthy because you cannot make this up by feeding. Other issue can be medical complications such as:

• Urinary stones

• Abnormal Heart Rhythm

• Drop in Blood Pressure

• Blurred Vision

• Fainting

• For diabetics it can be Dangerous

• Lower blood count

 

Going without food for hours on end can defiantly have its drawbacks and not be for everybody. (Spano 69)

GETTING RESULTS

Results can vary. Results come from eating healthy and the right amount of foods for long periods of time. The eating you do over the holiday dinner table isn’t going to be detrimental to your dieting plan. If you have been dieting and working out for months, one weekend of splurging on those unhealthy foods is fine. Think of it as treating yourself for all the hard work you have done, but once the holiday is over your body will be right back into its routine of diet and exercise.

Lastly, enjoy that yummy holiday food guilt free! Treat yourself for one weekend and I bet you will still see results that come from months of hard work and determination.

 

Alexandria Cummines

(Medical Student at Old Dominion University)

 

 

REFERENCES

Spano, Marie. “The Holiday Recovery Diet.” FitnessRX 1 Dec. 2014: 66-70. Print.