Getting through the end of the year and staying fit is no easy feat. Halloween’s candy fest leads straight into Thanksgiving’s turkey binge, and everyone is guilty of divulging in those decadent December holiday desserts. The New Year calls for a few resolutions, and slimming down is one of the most popular ones.
“After winter break, I made this year’s resolution to get and stay in shape instead of having my weight fluctuate all year long,” junior Ani Petrosyan said.
The first step to any effective diet is to keep track of everything you eat. This way, you will not forget about that trip you took to the cookie jar or the soda you grabbed at lunch. By keeping a food journal, you are held accountable for what you eat every day and you can find out where those extra calories are coming from.
“I have an app on my phone that helps me keep track of my calories and tells me how many I have left in the day after I log each meal,” junior Rachel Suh said. “If you want your diet to be successful, you have to record everything that you eat.”
Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables may sound cliché, but in addition to keeping you healthy, they can also keep you lean. Foods with high water content such as fruits, vegetables, water-based soups and stews and cooked whole grains are not only low in calories but are also satiating. Moreover, most of them contain lots of fiber, which fills you up.
“Eat your vegetables, because they have fiber and keep you fuller for a longer time,” junior Katie Stone said. “You should add vegetables to dishes you make because although you’re eating more, you’re also cutting calories. I like to give myself a vitamin and mineral goal instead of a calorie limit.”
While you should not drop everything to eat the minute your stomach starts to rumble, do not let yourself get famished either. Oftentimes, skipping meals leads to losing control. Being hungry makes it harder to control your urges to overeat. In addition, by denying your body calories, you are also denying the body’s metabolism. A suddenly lowered caloric intake will force the body into “starvation mode” where it conserves calories from what you have already eaten and slows down the metabolism, thus storing more calories as fat.
“I used to skip lunch a few times a week when I wasn’t hungry because I thought that it would help me lose a few pounds, but all that did was make me hungrier later in the day and I would binge eat cookies and chips when I got home,” Suh said.
Lastly and most obviously, slimming down and getting fit entails exercise. You cannot starve your way to your goal weight; not only is that unhealthy, it is also ineffective. This does not mean you have to sprint 10 miles or spend three hours doing P90X every day, but it does mean you have to get off the couch and start moving around. At the Endocrine Research Unit of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, a study revealed that thin people were more likely to stand, walk and fidget. Researchers noted that obese individuals sat, on average, more than two hours longer every day than leaner individuals did. The more you move around, the better shape you will be in.
“Make it a goal to work out every day no matter how lazy you are,” Stone said. “Losing weight is 80 percent diet and 20 percent exercise.”
