If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably already started looking for your Christmas outfits in the shops and searching for the best dress to wear to your parties.
But it’s always hard to feel your best when you’re covered in as many thermals as you can find. This “seasonal breakdown”: the sudden drop in temperature, waking up in darkness and still reminiscing about those amazing summer nights out, leaves us all feeling a little worse for wear. And let me guess, many of you are also ignoring or putting off going to the gym, finding some silly excuse about working harder next time and instead ending up in front of the television with a pack of very delicious high calorie snacks as well? But still, what to do about the amazing outfit prepared for Christmas that is just that bit too tight?
Never fear, experts say we still have time to sort ourselves out and look great on our big, festive, night out. According to them six weeks is just enough time in advance to start a ‘Little Black Dress Diet’ and shift that extra weight for Christmas.
Six weeks is a long time, so there is no need to starve or refuse food, in any case this only lowers the metabolism, making it harder to lose weight. We know this as yet many of us will admit to crash dieting and taking the lazier approach.
Whatever our aims are, this is how the big-guns are slimming down in Hollywood…There must be an easier way to achieve LA glamour in time for the festive season than these.
The Hollywood Big Three:
1- Cut the Carbs – Of course the most popular port of call is cutting out all carbohydrates and red meat. Cutting out red meat is by no means a bad thing for your regular diet as these tend to be the fattiest but this needs to be balanced by retaining protein in the form of nuts and pulses. Cutting out carbs completely can be more serious as your body still needs an energy source for everyday activities but replacing white carbs with healthier whole-wheat varieties and only eating smaller potions will certainly help.
2- The Baby Food Diet – as simple as it sounds and exceedingly popular in Hollywood, the baby food diet consists of replacing ordinary meals with pots of baby food. Of course you lose weight as you’re severely restricting your calorie intake, but you also lose out on fibre and more complex and palatable tastes found in an adult diet.
3- The Master Cleanse Diet – not much food or planning involved really, just tea, lemonade, water, cayenne pepper and maple syrup. Sound healthy to you? No, of course not. Proposed as a 14 day diet for optimal weight loss (plus time for law suits for the various health complications resulting in long term use) the Master Cleanse is one of Hollywood’s most extreme dieting fads.
What’s really best?
Many studies show that a steady and healthy diet with a range of low calorie regular meals, together with a daily exercise routine to burn extra calories and increase the speed of your metabolism is the best way to do it but it’s not always as easy as it sounds.
If you’re struggling with whether a product is good for your diet or not, make use of the ‘traffic light’ system many supermarkets now use, to indicate how calorific something is. The same can be said for fat content which also needs monitoring if you intend to lose more than just water weight.
Another option is going vegetarian. Fruits and vegetables are low calorie and filling so you needn’t feel hungry, plus you’ll get more than your 5-a-day.
Stay hydrated. This is one of the most important factors! If you don’t your body will become dehydrated and will attempt to retain water from your food, thus making it even more difficult to lose a few pounds.
Finally reducing alcohol intake always helps as alcohol is high in calories and reduces your metabolism.
And we’ll definitely keep this all up over Christmas…