Here are five ways to stay on track during social events, holidays, and vacations. This way, you can see the results you deserve.
We speak to a lot of women in their 40s and 50s who are looking to drop a couple of dress sizes. Yet, they’re usually struggling to balance that with their social life – especially in the run up to Christmas. This time of year makes it hard for them to stay on track.
Many of the women we speak to are able to stick to healthy food and exercise during a “normal” week. But, when they go to social events, all those good intentions go out the window and they struggle to stay on track. They find it hard to not to eat and drink way too much. And this is completely normal.
They step on the scales the next day, and find they’ve gained a load of extra weight. This can be really demoralising. Often it can lead to giving up completely, putting on even more weight and ending up worse off than before the diet.
We can’t tell you how many women we’ve worked with who were trapped in this situation.
But the truth is that, with the right approach, you can quickly and easily drop a couple of dress sizes and stay on track with your goals. All without starving yourself, banning weekend treats, or giving up your social life!
In this blog, which we also cover on our podcast, we’re going to reveal our top strategies for socialising without gaining a single pound on the scales!
Socialise without gaining weight
Most people see nutrition as black or white. They think that if they can’t do it perfectly, there’s no point trying at all. It’s not their fault.
Bog standard diets are very rigid and teach black and white thinking. Foods are either good or bad, and there’s no flexibility. This makes it much harder to stay on track with your diet.
In reality, it’s not on or off, or black or white.
It probably is impossible to be absolutely perfect, but it’s miles better to be good enough, rather than not trying at all.
Good enough might look like having a gin and tonic, or prosecco, rather than wine. It might look like being selective with the canapes, and saying yes to the healthier ones.
The key thing with social events is to stop worrying about it not being perfect. It won’t be. But it doesn’t need to be perfect either.
Our clients have busy calendars with lots of work and social events, and they’re still are able to lose 1-2 stone in 12 weeks without missing out entirely.
The protein secret
All foods are divided into three main groups:
- Protein
- Carbs
- Fats
While these all contain calories (or energy), the way the body deals with those calories is different. For carbs and fats, the body basically just sees them as sources of energy: they are easily digested, especially if they are processed like sugar, bread or pastry.
For protein though, it’s a little more difficult for the body to digest. So, 30% of the energy you take in from protein is actually used to digest it. Therefore the amount of calories you take into your body overall is reduced, despite eating the same amount of food.
The other advantage of eating protein is that it signals to your brain that you are full and satisfied. This means that after eating a high protein meal, you won’t be craving other foods or feel like anything else.
So if you fill up on protein, not only will you take in less calories, you’ll also find it easier to avoid eating and drinking other unhealthy foods too.
Skip this to lose weight
Nobody needs to eat 3 courses! It’s nice to do on a special occasion, like on your birthday, but if you’re doing it regularly it’s going to be impossible to avoid overeating.
This is especially true if you have a desk-based job where you’re barely moving all day. Both starters and desserts are often 500-1000 calories, and our average client eats between 1500-2000 calories a day. So, this would be half of their entire day’s calorie intake in just ONE course!
Either share the dessert with someone else, or just say no to dessert if you’ve already had a starter and a main. Or if you love dessert, skip the starter and just have dessert.
Practice saying no
A lot of people feel pressured into eating or drinking certain things in social situations, often because they’re worried that if they say no, it might come across as rude.
Sometimes this may be a genuine concern, for example if you go round to someone’s house for dinner, they cook you a meal and you don’t eat.
More often though, it will be someone trying to convince you to have a desert, another drink or another unhealthy “extra” that isn’t the main meal. The reality is though, nobody cares whether you say yes or no in these situations.
Think about the last time someone told you they didn’t fancy having a desert. Did you judge them or feel offended by them? No.
So when someone asks you if you want something and it doesn’t fit in with your goals or your nutritional choices, the easiest approach is simply to say “no, thank you.” Most of the time nobody will question that, occasionally someone will say yes and try to convince you to change your mind. If they do, just tell them you don’t feel like having another drink.
All of this relies on being clear on your goals, and what you need to do in order to achieve those goals. This then means you can make choices which take you closer to what you want rather than further away.
Alcohol hacks to lose weight
Alcohol is very calorie dense – even more than carbs! Whilst it’s a liquid, it’s easy to consume loads of calories from alcohol without even realising it.
And that’s before you can even factor in the 100s of extra snack calories that usually comes with alcohol, like nuts or crisps. If you eat half a bag of kettle chips, a handful of peanuts and with two glasses of wine, that’s about 1000 calories extra, before you’ve even eaten your meal.
Instead, switch the wine for prosecco, a slimline gin and tonic, or a non-alcoholic option. These are just a few of the things women inside our Fit Over 40 program do to enable them to still socialise and lose weight.
