3 rules to keep a flat stomach this Christmas
The Gains police are back and this time it’s Coach Rishi’s with his 3 simple rules to ensure your hard work this year doesn’t go to waste over the Christmas period.
An obvious choice would be just to continue eating according to your usual diet over Christmas. Let’s be honest we all know that the sight & smell of that traditional turkey roast dinner with all the trimmings is about as easy to resist and feeling up the presents under the tree!
Lucky for you that Coach Rishi is here to save you some unwanted Christmas poundage by implementing these strategies to help curb any over indulgence that may occur.
1. On Christmas day if you plan to have a large celebratory meal you can fast during the day and save your calories for the evening. This way you can still stay in a calorie deficit and enjoy a big dinner with the family. Just try not to binge as it’s easy to overeat a days worth of calories from just one meal.
2. If you don’t like the idea of fasting for almost a whole day you can slightly undereat for a number of days prior to Christmas dinner and then bank those calories. For example you could eat 250 calories less than usual for 5 days and then for Christmas dinner you can have an additional 1250 calories on top of your usual daily amount. Your weekly calorie totals will not be in a surplus despite this one daily spike.
3. If you want a complete diet break, I’d suggest changing up your training goals. Try to add some extra muscle, endurance, or strength with the help of those extra calories. The worst thing to do when you overeat is to skip training too. If you tend to indulge during the entire festive season then you can really make the most of the excess of calories by training extra hard. Even if you gain a bit of weight you can lose it afterwards by tapering down your calories and also with the help of the metabolic adaptation that occurred from the higher calories and muscle gains.
These are just 3 easy ways to deal with Christmas without being antisocial or significantly breaking your diet/physique goals. I’m not promoting binge eating but if you know you will not stick to your diet then this is a form of damage control with some added benefits. None of us want to feel like a bloated Santa by the time the new year comes around!
Rishi Haria
Strength & Nutrition specialist
