FitnessRum

A holiday should be like a holiday! The holiday menu is not strictly observed! (applies to all readers and customers).

However, you cannot have more than 1-2 holidays a month, the exception is December, because we have Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Year.

If you lose weight

In these 3 days you can have a light breakfast. Then starve all day, only water, tea without sugar (without fresh fruit, juices, etc.). Make sure you do your workout, even if it’s exhausting, strength training. Then eat as much as you want for dinner. I offer you eating in rounds, hahah 🙂

First round: you try everything on the table. Then rest for 10 minutes. If you feel like eating more, you go through a second round of eating everything on the table. Rest for 10 minutes or as long as you want. If you have any room left, make a third round. You should be well full here, according to Bulgarian customs, there are at least 7-8-9 dishes on the table on Christmas Eve.

If you keep shape

Don’t worry about the holidays. Do not think about what is allowed and what is not at the holiday dinner. Perhaps the only restriction is to overeat only at lunch or dinner. Do not overeat at breakfast, lunch and dinner. You will not feel well, your energy will drop if you have non-stop food to grind in your stomach.

On the other hand, you will have a very high energy and motivation if you eagerly expect the festive overeating. You will spend the whole day thinking about the delicacies that await you, you will enjoy your workout and you will tremble in anticipation of the holiday. You will not feel bloated. You will be light, happy and impatient 🙂

How to measure yourself during and after overeating

When you increase the daily food, and especially carbohydrates, the water in the body also increases and you retain water. On one hand you will have more food in the stomach (I know you are able to eat 1 kg.) and on the other hand you will retain water (at least 1 kg.) And hop, the scale shows 2 kg. more.

Does this mean that you have gained 2 kilograms of fat? No, it doesn’t. Nothing bad happened, you didn’t gain, calm down 🙂!

The secret to retain less water is to drink more water!  This way after the holidays you will regain your old weight, because the more water you drink, the more water you throw away, so you do not retain it. Usually, 3 days after you return to your normal diet (meal plan with energy deficiency) you regain your previous weight.

Warning: the weight is a very inaccurate measure. Due to water retention and abdominal contents, the weight on the scales can fluctuate 1-2 kg, which does not mean that you have gained 1-2 kg fat. That’s why I prefer measuring the circumference of the waist, hip and thigh with a sewing meter – this is a more accurate indicator.

HOWEVER, notice that I’m talking about overeating once a day and only 3 days a month in December. I’m not talking about doing it regularly.

An alternative way of eating

Everybody is talking about eating a little and regularly 5-6 times a day, including myself in my early articles. There are periods when this is appropriate. For example, if you start a fat reduction diet, the amount of food is usually reduced and the person experiences discomfort / hunger while getting used to the new amounts. Then it is good to eat 4-5 times a day, because of physical and emotional reasons. In the transition period (the first 2-3-4 months) eating 5 times a day is useful to reduce the amount of food you are used to and keep your blood sugar level stable (see below why I consider this unhealthy).

However, in a long run, I think it is good to switch to eating 2-3 times a day. This is good for several reasons:

Social reason

You can have a light breakfast, then spend the whole day on water and tea (without sugar or honey). People usually gather together for dinner (family, friends) and a person needs to relax, to get rid of stress, to feel satisfaction from the company, from the conversations, from the emotions that are shared, from the food. The process of eating is not only a necessity but also a pleasure. The pleasure of eating without restrictions is a sought-after feeling by most people.

If you eat twice a day, you can eat whatever you want because you can’t eat a lot of food, and even if you do, it won’t be fully absorbed. However, my advice is to try to overeat with good foods, not white flour and sugar, but everyone makes their own choice, people are different 🙂 You can eat and 3 times a day, again with absolutely nothing in between meals, just water and tea (without sugar or honey). Get used to eating only when you sit down on the table to do so. Do not graze or snack!

Healthy reason

Recently, many people have developed insulin resistance. This is a pre-diabetic condition in which the insulin cannot “inject” glucose into the cells, resulting in high blood sugar and more insulin being produced by the pancreas. The result is the pancreas depletes, reduces / stops the insulin production which leads to diabetes (lack of insulin). That’s why I think that the frequent blood sugar rise coming from more meals a day is not good for health.

Evolutionary cause

From an evolutionary point of view, the humans did not have a supermarket and a refrigerator to get food whenever they wanted. Getting food was related to finding it first – physical activity in conditions of hunger, because they were looking for food when it finishes. And this was not a regular process every 3-4 hours. Irregular periods of overeating and starvation have followed one after another until finding the next food.

Conclusion

If you eliminate the flour (all grains) and sugar from your diet, you can eat as much and whatever you want. Eat well, then wait until you are really hungry. You will see that it will take at least 6-7-8 hours to feel hungry. Then eat and the day has finished 🙂.

My advice is to gradually exclude (for 1-2 years) from the menu or eat super rarely foods that are made from flour such as bread, pasta, pastries, cookies, crackers, biscuits, cakes, pizza, spaghetti, etc. And the foods that contain sugar – to replace the sugar with fruits.

Happy Holidays!