It’s likely that many people will experience holiday weight gain at least once in their lives. This is especially true if those vacations take place during the cold winter months.
At that time you are running slow due to cold. And when you get together with your friends and family, it’s hard to say “no” to a festive meal.
However, you’ll probably come to regret eating too much over the holidays. While it can be difficult to keep your diet under control, it is possible to avoid holiday weight gain with the help of technology. Here’s how to do it.
1. Use a weight loss app Lose It!
One of the most common things people recommend for tracking your diet is to use a weight loss tracker. There are tons of apps on the market, so essentially all you have to do is choose the one that’s right for you.
One app that is perfect to use during the holidays is the Lose It! It is a weight loss tracker for Android and iOS that has both free and premium plans. The free plan has ample features, and should do just fine for what you need.
Additionally, Lose It! The app tells you what kind of nutrients you’re consuming—fat, carbs, and protein. Some good advice would be to use this app over the holidays to see which foods give you the most calories.
From there, you can adjust your other meals so that your daily calorie intake stays within range. lose it! There’s a perfect Christmas weight loss tracker app.
2. Create Meal Plans with Mealtime
One of the most helpful things you can do to help you stay healthy during the holidays is the use of a meal plan.
Then, make more of these meals than usual, so you can feed yourself leftovers and cut down on your time in the kitchen.
This careful portion control can keep you from scrambling for food in the fridge at the last minute. It can also prevent you from relying on unhealthy options.
The same principles can be applied to the food you eat during festive occasions.
Additionally, you can also use meal-planning apps and websites like Mealime to help you avoid holiday weight gain. The Mealime app is beginner-friendly, and it makes meal planning easy.
Adjust your eating preferences, and the app creates recipes based on your specific diet, allergies and restrictions, and serving size. Some types of diets include low-carb, keto, vegetarian and pescatarian.
Now, for your ideal holiday meal plan, simply choose a readymade meal plan that Mealtime has created just for you, or you can create your own meal plan.
The library of recipes is huge, so to make it easy they’ve been organized into categories like lunch-friendly, pantry staples, top-rated, and more.
Additionally, you can use the search function to find a specific recipe or filter recipes using multiple tags for a more advanced search.
From there, tap the plus icon to add dishes to your meal plan and the app even calculates all the ingredients into one easy shopping list!
While the holidays are already partially planned in terms of meals for you and your family, you can take the planning a step further.
Let’s say you want to eat Christmas cookies every day as part of your diet. By using cookies in your meal plans, you can calculate how much they’ll cost you in terms of calories.
You can then add other items to your meals to adjust these cookies accordingly. If you’re looking for ways to figure out what to eat, here are the best meal planning apps and websites to save money.
3. Find a Holiday Food Blog or Website
Another way you can keep your weight in check—and plan better meals—is by finding a food blog that gives you ideas about what to cook for the holidays. There are tons of food blogs out there, including some amazing baking websites for delicious dessert ideas.
If you’re looking for recipes specifically dedicated to the holidays, search the AllRecipes website for Christmas recipes or the Food Network for holiday-themed meals. Through sites like this, you can find out what you’ll be baking each week while still keeping in the holiday spirit.
Because the AllRecipes website has a dedicated Christmas section, it’s easy to find what you’re looking for, whether it’s Christmas candy recipes or ideas for edible gifts. For each recipe, you have the option to save, rate, print or share it. So if you’re not cooking, perhaps you can suggest some of these recipes to your host.
In addition to Christmas-themed recipes, AllRecipes also has recipes for many other special occasions and holidays like Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving, and even Cinco de Mayo!