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Thanksgiving to the New Year seems to be the Scariest time for most people who are Health Conscious. Most people view these 6 weeks as the inevitable time they Gain Weight and becomes the classic downfall to their program. I am here to tell you that you Can Have Your Cake and Eat it Too… it all comes back to Understanding the Body and Educating yourself on the proper adjustments before and after you have an “Off Plan” meal and realizing that a few additional days of extra enjoyment has a very minor effect on your waistline in the grand scheme of things.

Let me use my recent Thanksgiving Meal as an example. First, you should know that I love Thanksgiving and I love to eat! When dinner was served I ate everything on the table: Turkey, Stuffing, Bread, Butter, Broccoli Casserole, Pumpkin Bread, Vanilla Ice Cream and of course Whip Cream! Needless to say this was a meal that spiked my blood sugar levels and I enjoyed every moment…

In the past I would feel guilty before I ate the meal, while I ate it and after I was finished, thinking that I was sabotaging myself. I thought I needed to be 100% compliant 100% of the time. Even when I was knee deep in it, that mentality just never seemed realistic so I decided to focus on the body’s physiology, and uncover some secrets that would minimize storing fat from big meals. Now these Secrets should be used for all “Off Meals”, not just during Holiday time.

Let’s start with the most important secret, Eating Consistently before the Meal. Too many times people don’t eat anything all day in preparation for their feast of an “Off Meal”. This becomes a nightmare for your metabolism. What ends up happening is you burn lean tissue mass all day long while you are skipping meals. Your muscle mass is responsible for a fast metabolism, so if you burn muscle mass you slow down your metabolism causing you to store more body-fat. Additionally you will be eating with low blood sugar; this in turn maximizes your appetite. The end result is a very high blood sugar spike alongside an Increase in fat storage. This metabolic swing can be avoided simply: just eat balanced meals right up until the “Off Plan” Meal. Doing this will keep your body stable and burn energy more efficiently through the day. It will also prevent you from severely overeating at the “Off Plan” meal.

The second secret to surviving these kinds of meals is to eat a Meal of Just Protein and Fat 4 hours after the “Off Plan” Meal. Eating food causes the digestive system to work, and an active digestive system typically means an active metabolism. Most people after an “Off Plan” meal will not eat for the rest of the evening. This causes the body to flip right over into a storage state, something that carries over to the next day – and they’ll have no appetite upon waking. There is an easy solution to this. Even 4 hours after an “Off Meal” the body’s blood sugar may still be high, so by having a ½ Meal of just Protein and Fat (No Carbohydrates), you’ll allow stimulation of the digestive tract and will increase your body’s metabolic rate, helping digest your initial “Off Plan” meal. In this second meal, you want to avoid carbohydrates since your blood sugar is still high and carbohydrates are the biggest component in causing elevated blood sugar. You will notice that this second meal will cause your appetite to increase later in the evening and this way you’ll wake up the next morning hungry. These are very good signs that your body has used the extra energy available to it.

The last Secret is to accept that “Off Plan” Meals are good for you! There are 365 days in a year, if you are consistent 85% of the time you are doing Fantastic. “Off Plan” meals are a great way to indulge in your favorite foods, enjoy Social Gatherings, and most important give yourself a Vacation from your regimen. There are even studies showing that an “Off Plan” meal can be helpful in breaking through Plateaus, due to the way they tend to shake up the body’s metabolism.

There you have it, the Three Secrets to fully enjoying your Holiday meals as well as any Future “Off Plan” meals. It’s important to remember that the Key to Achieving your Permanent Nutrition and Fitness Goals is your day to day consistency. “Off Plan” meals, if used in moderation, are excellent for maintaining a realistic and balanced approach to your program. By embracing these ideas, you can now let go of the worry about Weight Gain during the Holidays. Implement these three secrets and you can Have Your Cake and Eat it Too!

You probably expect to gain a number of things when starting a home business. You may expect to gain freedom or perhaps you expect to gain wealth. It is not uncommon to expect gains from your home business endeavors. Unfortunately many people gain something they do not expect or want when starting a home business. A number of home business owners are shocked to discover that a home business can cause them to gain weight.

Grazing Behavior

When you work at home, your kitchen is like a workplace cafeteria open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you are not careful, you can find yourself running to the fridge or the cupboard for frequent snacks throughout the day.

Grazing behavior can be devastating to a person’s weight maintenance. Many people really do not realize how easy it is to rack up hundreds of extra calories every day just by grabbing a few handfuls of this and a couple of handfuls of that. Those calories quickly convert to extra pounds, and the home business owner is suddenly wondering where the extra weight has come from.

While a handful of chips here and a few M&Ms there may not seem like a big deal, when you add up the handfuls eaten throughout the day, throughout the week and throughout the year, you start to see the big picture – no pun intended.

Unhealthy Eating Habits

When you are serious about starting your home business, it is only natural for you to be extremely busy with home business activities. Because of this, many home business owners do not follow a healthy diet. Weeks and weeks of fast food, frozen dinners and quick-fix meals can really take a toll on your waistline and you definitely do not want to see what it is doing to your arteries and heart.

Glued to a Chair

If your home business involves hours upon hours of computer work and no time for anything else, you are not going to get the exercise you need and you are going to start packing on the pounds. Home business owners who do not make time for healthy activities and exercise almost always experience significant weight gain.

Think about the extra calories you actually burned just from working outside of the home. You had to walk from your home to your car and walk from your car to your workplace. Most people also walk to various locations throughout the day, whether it is to a meeting, someone’s office, the printer, etc. Then, at the end of the day you walked back to your car. All of that activity can add up to quite a few calories being burned. Once you start working at home, you are no longer burning those calories.

Avoiding Unhealthy Weight Changes

If you want to avoid the weight gain pit so many other home business owners have fallen in to, there are some steps you need to take.

First and foremost, make sure you eat right. That means eating three square meals a day with healthy snacks in between each meal. For those of you wondering, just because a potato chip is baked and not fried does not mean it qualifies as a healthy snack.

When your schedule becomes so busy you can barely keep your head straight, it may be tempting to throw in a frozen dinner, grab a burger and fries or order pizza every night. No matter how tempting it is, do not give in. For your body and mind to be performing at their best, you need nutritional meals rich in the nutrients, vitamins and antioxidants your body needs.

In addition to a proper diet, you also need to make sure you get the exercise your body requires. If you are stuck in front of the computer, get up every half hour or so to do some sit-ups, push-ups, or jumping jacks. Some home business owners even invest in treadmills and work out once or twice a day to keep their bodies active and in shape.

By taking measures to avoid significant weight changes, you will be able to stay in good shape and perhaps you may even find yourself getting into better shape than you were before you started your home business.