Winter Weight

Winter weight, it’s the bane of college students across the country as the cold weather forces them inside and keeps unfortunate pounds on people. It never helps either that three of the biggest eating weekends in America, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and The Super Bowl, all occur during this stretch of inactivity. However, it would at least appear with our recent weather that we are approaching the springtime, which means the end of hibernation and the beginnings of beach season. Unfortunately, almost nobody survives the winter gloom without a few added pounds so the question is how to safely and effectively trim down your body in preparation for the summer sun.

Diet is often touted as one of the best and easiest ways of losing weight that there is. Unfortunately for the would-be-dieter there is a lot of misinformation about dieting to be found, as well as many different diet systems giving you different messages about how to diet “correctly”. So, with all of this conflicting and misleading information all around you, how can someone make an informed decision about how to create a healthy and effective diet plan?

The first thing to remember when starting any diet is that at first it won’t be as enjoyable as your previous eating habits, at least until you start seeing results. So try not to entirely scrap your old eating habits in favor of eating nothing but grilled chicken and salad. Overcompensating so dramatically will only lead to failure.

Instead, slowly transition yourself to healthier food choices, such as flavored water instead of pop or a nutri-grain instead of a snickers bar. Small changes can cut a surprising amount of calories from your diet.

Another under-recognized factor in diets is timing, not the what, but the when of meal planning. The human body goes through phases of awakeness during the day and the more awake your body is, the higher your metabolism is, and the more calories you burn. What this means is that your body “shuts down” for the night, so any food you eat late at night isn’t digested and burned off like it would be during the day, instead it is turned to fat over night. Therefore, eating before bed is one of the biggest things to avoid in order to lose weight.

Additionally, and surprisingly, is the advice on eating breakfast. With breakfast it’s all about portions, because while the body does need fuel to get up and get through the day, your body is not quite awake yet and your metabolism is still slow from having just emerged from sleep. Therefore a small, but protein filled breakfast such as eggs on toast, or with cantaloupe, is a perfect way to start off your morning; while biscuits and gravy will clog up your system with fats and carbs before your body is ready to burn them off.

So when starting a diet always remember the three key things. Transition slowly, eat correct portions, and eat at the right times.