The best piece of advice I can offer when it comes to keeping off the 'holiday weight'...is to treat the holidays the same way you do every other day of your life.
Try not to look at the holidays as an excuse to eat everything in sight, or skip the gym, and throw away everything you've worked so hard for.
The 80/20 rule can be everything here.
Rather than a cheat day...have some treat foods. Try to get 80% of your calories from healthy, wholesome foods, and then the other 20% of calories can be in the form of your 'treat' foods. It's all about allowing yourself to enjoy your favorite treats here and there, but not overdoing it. That's how you can be way more successful, especially with maintenance, because then you won't feel restricted!
Respect the hard work you've put into achieving the body you have, and don't allow the holidays to be a reason to reverse everything you've accomplished thus far.
We gain weight when we eat more calories than we burn off. So, if you want to keep the weight off, and maintain where you're at with your weight right now, you just need to make sure you burn as much as you consume.
So, say you have a party to go to one night this week, and you're pretty positive you'll eat more calories than you would on a normal night...that's totally fine, just plan for it!
You have a few different options:
You can go to the gym before the party...maybe get a solid HIIT workout in; or extra resistance training; or maybe even some extra cardio—and that can help offset the extra calories you plan on eating.
Or, you could just eat a little less the next day to counterbalance the extra calories you ate. You can take your daily caloric intake at a week's time.
For example, say you're eating 1,600 calories per day for maintenance. So, that's 11,200 calories per week. So if you eat 1,900 calories one day, try only eating 1,300 the next—again, a way to offset any extra calories.
It's calories in vs. calories out.
So, to wrap it up:
Approach the holidays the same way you do every other day.
Offset extra calories by either eating less the next day or going harder in the gym.
Aim to follow the 80/20 rule, regularly.
Don't overdo the treats & be respectful of your body—feed it RIGHT.
...And some other quick tips for extra help with keeping off extra weight:
For more tips to follow to help ya maintain, & not gain during the holidays, check out my post "10 Tips to Stay on Track During the Holidays".
Make the holidays your b*tch & enjoy them to the fullest!
xo Mackenzie.