Avoid Creeping Weight Gain

by Michelle Sutton-Kerchner

Not everyone wants to lose weight. Some are happy to maintain their current size. That takes effort, too. Follow these hacks to keep your weight healthy …

Hold It Right There

Remember your teen years when you worried over an extra couple pounds? Looking back, you probably shed them the next day, despite a diet of burgers and pizza. If only we could maintain our happy weight later in life as easily as we did then. Well, today is our body of yesterday that we will dream about tomorrow. With some healthful tweaks, you can preserve today’s body.

Eat your favorites often—of healthy choices, of course. Find several meals and snacks you love and make them a dietary staple. Healthy eating is daunting when you don’t have ingredients or recipes readily available. Frequency of favorites will make them easy and convenient to prepare as well as something you enjoy eating. Those factors make healthful eating happen.

Spend a month experimenting. Discover healthful options that rival cravings for less-healthy favorites. Make these a regular part of your menu. Also, knowing the same delicious goodness will return at dinner one night the next week will make you less likely to overeat.

Avoid elimination diets. Cutting certain food groups, like carbs, from you diet can cause your weight to yo-yo. Body weight can fluctuate throughout the day based on water intake, exercise, and other factors, despite the absence of bagels and pasta. Instead, focus on a well-balanced diet from a variety of food groups, which can be maintained consistently over time.

Exercise on a schedule. Experts advise working out every other day to maintain your current weight. Consistency allows you to maintain your weight or even reduce it, depending on your fitness program’s intensity. In addition to your workout, studies show accomplishing 10,000 steps daily also helps prevent weight gain.

Strengthen large muscle groups. More calories are burned when working large muscle groups. Engage legs and buttocks muscles for the biggest burn, followed by back and chest muscle groups. In addition to maximizing caloric burn during workouts, you’ll burn more when sitting around with these well-worked muscles. Want to be sure your swimsuit fits all season? Add weights to leg-glute combo exercises like leg presses, squats, and lunges.

Be an accountant. If vacation will mean one less workout and one more margarita, plan for it. Try to balance it by adjusting pre-vacation workouts and meals.

Increase the duration of your workouts by about 10 minutes for two weeks prior to your vacation. Consider including an additional workout in your week. It is a great time to try a new fitness class! Add a session of circuit training. This cardio-muscle combo will buy you a little extra leniency with that boardwalk food.

Stay Steady

Follow these hacks to maintain your happy weight. Your biggest motivation for clothes shopping will be updates to style not size. In other words, just because the top with shoulder pads still fits doesn’t mean you should wear it.

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