5 Tips to Help Shift Your Holiday Tum

A summer of barbecues, ice cream and one-too-many glasses of Chardonnay may have left you with an undesirable spare tyre. So how can you whittle yourself back into good shape?

1. Get enough sleep. Not getting enough sleep can slow your metabolic rate, making it easier for the calories you eat to be stored as fat. In addition, levels of stress hormones fluctuate when you’re deprived of sleep and researchers have found a link between these hormones and increased levels of body fat around the middle.
2. Get your maths right. The body beautiful is achieved by creating a balance between the calories you take in and the calories you expend through exercise. Eat less and exercise every day for a month and you’ll be amazed at your new physique (NB – you don’t need to become a devoted gym bunny;  just a brisk walk for 30 minutes every day will burn off the equivalent of a bar of chocolate!)
3. Get a holistic exercise programme.  Make sure your exercise programme is well rounded - include plenty of stretching to lengthen everything out; practise core stability work such as basic Pilates exercises to flatten lumps and bumps, and don’t shy away from weights – they’ll give you the sculpted, lean look that every bride-to-be longs for.
4. Pile on the protein. Protein (i.e. meat, fish, eggs, tofu, pulses, nuts...and so on) is the friend of all dieters. In a study by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, protein was found to temporarily suppress the appetite (and your body burns more calories working hard to digest protein, too).
5. Watch the liquid calories. If over the course of a day you end up having a smoothie, a sports drink and a grande latte, you could in theory have taken in over half your daily calorie requirements in the form of drinks alone. Switch full fat lattes to skinny cappuccinos; opt for smoothies without banana or coconut milk added, and swap the red wine for a white wine spritzer (or better still, a glass of champagne).

Article by Diet and Fitness Expert Laura Williams

Image from Flickr, Uploaded by Helga Weber 

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