How To Not Gain Weight This Winter

The Winter Phenomenon

The more the temperature seems to go up throughought the cold months of the year, the more you tend to gain weight or become more and more inactive, prone to the infamous sport "Television Marathon".

If you clicked on this article, it's because you want something to change this winter. A way of thinking, a vision, or perhaps a step by step guide, in order to lose weight. You want your life to change for good and stop putting on pounds after pounds this winter.

So, how to do it? What strategy to use?

Well, we're going to through a step by step guide in order to stop gaining weight in winter. We'll assume you're pretty inactive and that you don't have the healthiest of diets to begin with. But before, let's check why people gain weight during winter...

Well, one of the most prominent factors of weight-gain in winter is... you got it, inactivity! Because yes, indeed, inactivity spikes in winter due to cold weathers, pushing people to stay home rather than staying in the cold. If you have the habit of cycling for example, a lot of people will stop cycling or jogging in winter. They would rather prefer indoors activity, and this is not an excuse to not cycle, as gyms do have cycling machines and treadmills.

The other factor is that people search for "comfort" in winter. Winter is harsh and cold, and a lot of people mood's start dropping when winter approaches. As a response, they eat more chocolate, they drink more sugary coffee, they eat heavy meals, etc. And, since we tend to be in pullovers and hoodies during the winter, most people tend to also overeat, not being scared that their abs disappear.

Just like a bear would hibernate, most people in winter... well... hibernate. They stay indoors most of the time and eat lots of food.

That is the Winter Phenomenon. It's the phenomenon of inactivity, of sudden laziness, and of overeating. And this leads to inevitably weight gain on the long-term, because winter can last up to 3 months, and that's plenty of McDonalds, Burger King's and cookies and donuts and all that kind of stuff.

So, let's start the step by step guide to not gaining weight in winter, no?

Step 1: Exercising

The most basic of steps it to keep your body moving during winter. Don't stay on the couch all day long waiting for something to change. You need to get your butt up and start working, despite your emotions, feelings, thoughts, and needs of comfort.

If you don't want to go outdoors, such as jogging or cycling, then you can stay indoors, and use a cycling machine or a treadmill at the gym. Try to also do some resistance training as it's good for health, such as weight-lifting (powerlifting, bodybuilding, etc).

Your goal should be to do at least 45 minutes of exercise, 3 times a week. Then, try to upgrade it to 4,5,6 times a week. Our goal is to make exercising a daily enjoyable habit, and not an occasional, horrible and frustrating habit. Exercising is great for the body and mind and it teaches you a lot about life and your body.

If you struggle to start exercising because you've never really exercised before or you've exercised in the past but now you have a hard time going back to it, simply start small. Exercise for 1 minute. If you can cycle for 1 minute, try to reach 3. If you did 3 or 5, and you give up, then fine, that's a start. Each session you'll try to do at least 3 or 5, and when it'll be easy enough, try to upgrade the amount of time you're working out through time. Maybe enhance the frequency (workout more days in the week) or do more each session, or both!

You can also find a partner, perhaps your romantic partner or a colleague at work or your friend in your high school or university or your mother or your father or your brother or your sister or your best friend, I mean ANYONE who has the same goals as you in terms of sport and body transformation. Working out with someone else is much more motivating because you both are accountable to each-other accountable for missing a workout, and this leads to less workout missed, and overall consistency. It also makes the game funnier if you're with a friend rather than with no-one.

But of course, if your "gym partner" is missing the gym one day, don't skip the workout too. This is the hardest part. For example, in my gym there were a group of two friends who always came. And when one left to live in another country, the second one continued to workout for a few weeks or months, alone. Until... he disappeared. Never heard from him ever again. So I can't tell for sure if he abandoned the gym and sports altogether, or if he changed of gyms or if he changed of sports or if he moved away, but I think this illustrates how important it is too to be independent. But, as a kickstarter to your journey, it's a good start.

Step 2: Diet

How important is dieting in weight-gain? It's the most important component. Indeed, inactivity and hormonal fluctuations can impact weight gain. However, the most important component is dieting. Being in a diet that doesn't destroy your calorie counter is super important. Eating clean, natural foods is also important.

Try to avoid anything heavily processed. For example: butter is a processed food. It's composed of milk but of a few others milky ingredients. However, it's pretty good for health if used in moderation and normal quantity. Now, compare that to the processed food named "Cookie". In cookies, you often have butter (good and natural), chocolate (bad because of added sugar and un-natural), flour (processed food and not super healthy), and added sugar on top of that (unhealthy).

Naturally, you can see that the term of "processed food" is misunderstood. Most people say processed food in a negative manner, and I say it too because it's easier to put every processed food in the same basket as most processed food is bad. But, a can of tuna composed of 1) tuna, 2) salt and 3) water is considered a processed food, even tho it's just... tuna with salt.

So be careful about the term of "processed foods". I'm not asking you to eliminate every "processed food", but I'm telling you to eat natural and healthy foods, even if they're processed. Bread is unhealthy. Pasta is unhealthy. Tomato is healthy. Apple is healthy. Chicken is healthy.

So avoid eating unhealthy foods. If you struggle to do so, do it step by step, like before with exercising. Add one leaf of salad to your meal everyday until you have a salad everyday. Keep in mind your goals and realize that what you do now and what gives you intense pleasure now can cause troubles later, not all the time but in the case of unhealthy foods, it can cause real troubles.

So don't overeat. The reason why you gain weight in winter is because you eat too many calories (energy), and since you have all this "extra energy", your body doesn't know what to do with it and stores it in case if one day your body is starving. So, it stores it into fat tissues and fat cells, which cumulates through time.

So try to stay under (in this case you'll lose weight) or perfectly in your "maintenance calories", meaning the calories to maintain your weight. To calculate your maintenance calories, click here.

One way to make sure you're in your calorie goals is to simply... track your calories. Yeah I know, not fun, but it's one of the only ways you can truly know what you're eating in terms of energy. My progress in my weight-loss journey spiked when I started to track my calories, it's a true game changer.

By the way, allow yourself from time to time to have a cheat meal. It's going to help you maintain a good diet in the long term.

Step 3: Consistency

That's the hardest step. You really need to make eating healthy and having healthy habits... an habit. Really, your life should become a compilation of doing the good habits instead of doing the bad habits.

The thing is, your life is ruled by two types of habits: good and bad. And, each action you take is e either a good habit, or a bad habit. For example, if everytime someone tries to get me mad I get very very mad, then hat might be a bad habit, because people can annoy me easily. If I know how to control my emotions more, this is a good habit.

If someone gives me a cookie and I say no, this is a good habit. If I say yes, it's a bad habit. If I keep adding good habits on top of good habits, I get a good life, confidence, and my life becomes better and better until it's incredible. If I keep adding bad habits on top of bad habits, I end up building a bad life, that is boring and sad and annoying to live through.

It's a question of choosing your poison. Either you choose to suffer now and be consistent and you'll be fulfilled and happy long-term, or you choose pleasure now in sacrifice of your future self. Now don't get me wrong, you CAN definitely have pleasure from time to time by eating unhealthy foods and sweets from time to time and watching a movie and skipping a workout to go and travel or whatever, but it shouldn't become a day-to-day habit.

It's okay to have a cheat meal, not a cheat life. It's okay to eat a sweet once, not everyday. So make sure to stack good habits on top of each other, and sometimes have bad habits here and there. It's alright to have bad habits rarely, it's not good to have it everyday. So be careful about that.

Conclusion

Finally, thank you for reading. I hope this article was of help to you, and I'll see you next time. Bye.

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