Already eyeing those Thanksgiving leftovers? Feeling guilty about the third piece of pie? No wonder. The average meal of thanks packs 2,500 to 3,500 calories, enough to gain 1 pound of body fat.
For tips on staying trim this holiday season, I checked with coach Jim Labadie of Achieve Total Fitness. His advice: set weight and exercise goals, then stick with them.
Over nothing but water, we talked about skipping the gravy, picking one dessert and moving away from the buffet.
Here are some of the highlights.
SUSAN: Give us the bad news. They say most people gain weight between Thanksgiving and Christmas. What's the story?
JIM: The average person is going to gain 5 to 10 pounds. It's very, very easy to ingest thousands and thousands and thousands of calories. If you run for about eight hours, you can burn off about 3,500 calories, which is 1 pound of human body fat. You can get that back in your system easily in an hour just for Thanksgiving dinner.
So what's your advice?
The biggest thing is you have to identify what you want to accomplish. You have to have a clear goal in mind that you cannot deviate from. You have to say, "I am not going to gain this 5 pounds." Because more than likely, if you say, "I'm going to lose X number of pounds during the holidays," it's going to be really, really hard. I would highly advise that you start an exercise program in December as opposed to January because it will help you keep that weight off.
Do you have a goal?
My goal is to weigh what I did in high school. I graduated in 1990 and I was 175, which is what I weigh now.
How do you still enjoy the holidays?
People should start to eat small, frequent, nutritious meals throughout the day. You should be eating five times a day at least. You don't want to go more than three hours without eating because that's going to slow your metabolism down. Make smaller portions, better food choices. Little changes that are going to add up over time are what's important. But you want to behave yourself as much as you can.
How do you behave?
If you're in a regular fitness program, usually what you do is eat properly six days a week and give yourself a guilt-free day, or a cheat day. If you want a Big Mac or a pizza, you can do what you want that day. You can choose Christmas Eve day, you can choose Christmas Day. You behave yourself at all those other parties knowing that you've got this one day coming to you.
What about fasting the day before and then pigging out?
I'm not a big fan of fasting. Fasting is going to slow down your metabolism. And if you fast, maybe you make it, maybe you don't. Maybe you get to 8 o'clock at night and you go, "The heck with this." And before you know it, you're eating ...
... Ice cream!
Yeah.
What are some of the worst holiday foods?
You want to stay away from the gravy because it's liquid calories. Obviously, any of the desserts are just packed with calories. Pick a dessert, have a piece, then get away from it. And all the calories that you eat when you're making dinner, those calories count, too.
Are there any foods that you say, "Go for it?"
Turkey. Ham, if it's lean. There's almost always a vegetable plate. Try to stay away from eating lots of bread. If you're going to drink, make it a light beer or a wine spritzer.
So if you're standing at a buffet table, what do you do?
You can't go there starving. You have to have those small, nutritious meals throughout the day so when it's time to go to that party, you're ready. You have to go in with a plan. You have to be very, very specific. "I'm going to have two pieces of cheese. I'm going to have two cookies and a glass of wine." That's not really ideal, but it's much better than going in there saying, "I'm going to try not to eat that much." Try is a failure word. You do it.
What about exercise during the holidays?
It's a very good idea to increase it if you can. You have to schedule it, and that's even more important around the holidays because things are crazy. You may have to reduce it. If you only have time for 15 minutes, then you only have time for 15 minutes. Now that's when you go back to what your goals are. If your goals are to lose 5 pounds, then you're going to have pick it up. It really goes back to what you want.
How many days of exercise a week?
There's ideal and realistic. In an ideal world, you're going to be doing three days of strength training and three days of cardiovascular. I don't like to scare people because there are so many people who aren't doing anything. As you start to feel better, you'll always do more.
What percentage of people make a new year's resolution to lose weight?
I couldn't give you a number, but I'd have to say practically everybody.
How many people keep it?
Not many. I used to work in a training studio, and any person that said, "I want the cardio program, the strength and nutrition ... tell me exactly what I need to do and I'm going to do it," those are the people you see twice and never see again. Those are the people who get so gung-ho that they don't have realistic expectations. You have to know that this is going to be hard.
- This interview was edited for brevity and clarity. Jim Labadie can be reached at 469-1100 or visit www.yourfitnesscoach.com
