Ditch your Diet During the Holidays.

Hey there,

The Holiday's are approaching us. Family, friends, loved ones, people you haven't seen in a while, anddelicious foodare all things we're looking forward to.

Many of my clients who have been seeing incredible weight loss progress over the past few months are concerned about the holiday season.

If you're dieting, I have a few tips to stay on track and continue to make progress over these next few months.

Not dieting? Great! This article may not be for you, but it could help a friend or family member, so please consider sharing to someone who may benefit from this :)

Here's my advice:

First, Thanksgiving and Christmas (or, whichever holidays you celebrate) should be mandatory cheat days.
Go all out. Forget about calories. Enjoy the hell out of these 2-3 days. Don't think twice. I'm telling my clients to not track calories. Write off these couple of days.

The pleasure of the holidays shouldn't outweigh your diet in importance. Life enjoyment should be a factor in dieting. In my opinion, it makes more sense to slow down your progress by a couple of days, then to not be able to enjoy that lasagna and cheesecake that whomever cooked for the family.

So, that's #1.

#2. Some practical stuff.
Okay, so some real world advice on how to offset some of the "damages done" during the holiday season - so to speak.

Front load protein at the beginning of the day
It's likely that you aren't going to be eating a high-protein, moderate carb/fat dinner when the time comes. So, what you can do to still hit your protein goal is to get half of your protein in at the beginning of the day.

This could be as simple as adding an extra scoop of protein powder to your shake, a few extra egg whites, a couple of greek yogurts, whatever you likedon't overthink it.

Front loading protein is often the advice I give for someone who has a dinner meeting, date, or anticipates a high carb + fat meal later on in the day.

Protein is by far the most filling macronutrient there is. So, when keeping protein high, you'll be less likely to eat as many calories by the time dinner comes.

Keeping carbs and fats low up until the big meal also makes sense for this type of strategy. That way, you have a high amount of carbs and fats to "spend" on the foods/drinks you really like.

Conclusion: You aren't going to lose progress by indulging this holiday season. Enjoy the time spent with friends, family and loved ones. Keep moving forward afterwards.

For more nutrition & fitness advice, shoot me an email at Luciano.Capitano.Coach@gmail.com and if you think this post could benefit a family or friend of yours, please share it. :)

- Luciano