Overeating: Getting Back on Track

The workweek ends and you are ready to relax and let go of all your five-day-week worries. You call up your pals and ask about their plans, hoping to get out of the house and out on the town with your posse. Fortunately, your friends are looking for a bit of a release as well and you make plans to go out and enjoy food, drinks, and dancing. Have fun and remember these tips, which will allow you to cut loose without destroying your diet efforts.

Joanna Hall is a well-known "diet and fitness guru" who started the Carb Curfew Diet and penned The Weight Loss Bible. She encourages people to develop a "contingency plan" that will help them to curb any damage done to their diet. Special events come up all the time. Maybe it is a wedding, big sports game, holiday party, or birthday celebration that leads one to overeat or over drink. Instead of starving yourself the day before or after the big event, be prepared to burn some extra calories during the day. Head to the gym to burn some energy and limit your caloric intake, shaving "300 fewer calories" of your daily intake. Three hundred calories may seem like a lot, but this can be achieved easily by swapping high calorie options with water-dense, lower calorie options. Having an open sandwich or eating an orange instead of a banana can save you up to 130 calories and 55 calories respectively. For many juice and soda drinkers, knocking three hundred calories off their daily intake is simple. Making water or other calorie free beverages (including diet soda, which I do not advise) your beverage for the day can save you many calories. For example, a person who drinks milk or juice at breakfast time and then drinks 2 regular sodas during the day can save approximately 400 calories by drinking calorie free beverages like water.

Finally, do not be shy at parties. Get out on the dance floor and move! Shaking your "groove thang" can burn a significant amount of calories and give you some fantastic toning action as well. Do you want to know how many calories you can burn on the dance floor? There are a slew of websites, which allow you to plug in your height, weight, and activity in order to calculate your calorie burn for any number of activities. Try the calculators at Caloriesperhour.com or Shape.com.

As far as a contingency planning goes, Hall's advice is sound. You do not need to starve yourself and you do not need to deprive yourself. Be more cognizant of the things you consume the day before the big party and get in a good workout the day before and the day after (should your hangover-head allow) and you will be golden-ready to get your party on guilt-free.

Source:
RealAge. Pig-out Weekends: How to Undo Overindulgence. Yahoo! Health. Retrieved August 8, 2009 from
http://health.yahoo.com/featured/31/pig-out-weekends-how-to-undo-overindulgence/