iRenew – Official Blog
2Jan/121

2012′s Holiday Pound Busters: Diets That Will Ensure a Fitter You

With countless celebrations and the most irresistible foods served, packing on the pounds is inevitable in the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. In this span of time, most people drop their diets and indulge in the festive spreads, assuring themselves they'll lose the extra pounds right after. However, this is easier said than done.

Holiday nutrition can be one of the most challenging feats to accomplish. If you can maintain it, then your weight will be in control and you deserve congratulations for your iron-clad willpower; but if you give in to all the delicious holiday treats, then you can be sure that getting back on any diet will be even harder, if not impossible.

Whether or not you're able to keep away from the holiday temptations, be confident that the coming year will present a lot of opportunities to make amends for stuffing your tummy with, well… stuffing, among other things.

As early as now, there are a number of diets recognized to be some of the best for 2012. Here are some examples of diets you can consider as part of your New Year's resolutions:

The DASH Diet

Originally created to lower blood pressure and the risk of heart disease, the 28-day DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet was also found to be an effective weight-loss regimen. This is attributed to the low-salt, whole food meal plans it requires people to follow. For example, instead of stuffing yourself with salty foods, you may have a sandwich with soup and veggies on the side, or a large salad with chicken, followed by a frozen yogurt sundae.

This diet is best for people with time to cook since it involves a number of recipes that will need kitchen work.

The Paleo Diet

Also called the Caveman Diet, The Paleolithic Diet is a modern dietary regimen that consists of foods presumed to be the main sources of nutrition during the Paleolithic era – or in short, caveman food. The general approach to this diet is to avoid processed foods, cereal grains, legumes, dairy products, refined sugars, and starchy veggies. Although not originally designed to be a weight-loss plan, the Paleo diet proves effective because it eliminates excess carbohydrates from your diet.

Meal plans include fish, grass-fed pasture raised meats, vegetables, fruits, roots, and nuts. What's more, this diet is naturally casein and gluten-free, making it a great choice for people with milk or wheat-based food allergies.

These are just two examples of the coming year's most recommended diets. So, lose that holiday gut and say hello to 2012 with a well-balanced dietary strategy for a healthier you!

Know any more diets we should watch out for this coming 2012? If you do, feel free to leave a comment – we'd love to hear from you!

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23Nov/112

Go Past the Stuffing: How to Have a Guilt-Free Thanksgiving Dinner

When thinking about Thanksgiving, one thing usually comes to mind – the food! From juicy, stuffed roast turkey and mashed potatoes, to an assortment of cakes, pies, and other desserts, this holiday is easily one of the most sumptuous ones in an entire year. For this reason, it's hard to imagine anyone not enjoying the festivities. Well, if you’re one of the many of health-conscious Americans trying to keep the pounds away, you might beg to differ.

Thanksgiving can be torture if you're on a very strict diet. With everyone having a feast over so much food on the table, it's hard not to get jealous as you keep to your grilled veggies and lean meat.

But whoever said you had to skip on the delicious holiday spread, anyway? Here are some tips on how you can indulge in your favorite Thanksgiving meals without totally abandoning your fitness goals:

Boost your metabolic rate. One way of preparing for the holiday feast is by creating a special exercise routine and meal plan that will increase your metabolism before Thursday. Having a high metabolic rate means you'll burn more calories at a higher rate, even when your body is at rest.

In terms of exercise, there are two routines that stimulate calorie-burning: One is through interval training, a proven way of training your body to burn more calories through alternate sets of high and low intensity exercises; and the other through strength training, which increases muscle mass, allowing you to burn an extra 50 calories for each extra pound of muscle.

Your metabolic rate also depends highly on your eating habits, and the best way to increase your calorie-burning rate is through eating right. Plan your meals and avoid depriving your body of the fuel it needs to keep going. Before you know it, you'll be a calorie-burning machine, ready to take on Thursday's Thanksgiving turkey without hesitation!

Pace yourself. Remember to eat slowly; this way, you can enjoy all the dishes you love while consuming lesser calories. This is because, according to a growing number of studies, it takes about 20 minutes for our brains to realize that we're full, and that it's time to stop. On the other hand, if you hulk down mountains of stuffing in record time, you may already be eating past full tank, resulting in two things: a food coma and the nagging feeling that you've had too much to eat.

If you happen to have been working hard on your fitness for a while, indulging in your favorite Thanksgiving dishes won't be a problem. Make it your reward for doing your best! Even better, you may be burning most of what you'll eat, thanks to your high metabolic rate.

Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to schedule a post-Thanksgiving workout either. This way, you can make sure that all the holiday calories are burned away.

What did you do to enjoy last year's Thanksgiving? Got more tips on staying healthy and avoiding holiday weight gain? Leave a comment – we'd be happy to hear from you!

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