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What Should You Eat on Cozy Family Nights When You’re Trying to Lose Weight?
The temperature has dropped. The clouds have let loose with snow and the blustery wind howls. These brisk winter nights make us want to hibernate with family and nosh on comfort foods. But what should you eat on cozy family nights when you’re trying to lose weight?
Winter weather comfort foods don’t have to be laden with carbs and high in calories. Instead, plan ahead and choose meals around seasonal healthy foods so you can drop pounds before the summer season comes around.
Healthy, in-season foods for the winter months include the following:
• Brussels sprouts are filled with good for you nutrients, fiber and other health benefits. Try them roasted, sautéed or in salads. • Oatmeal supplies fiber and antioxidants. Top a bowl with fresh fruit, nuts, and a dash of cinnamon for a hearty morning meal. • Kale is high in vitamins and minerals. This good-for-you green plays nicely with other veggies and fruits, in salads, smoothies, crisped in the air fryer or added to soups. • Citrus fruits like oranges, grapefruit and tangerines are rich in vitamin C and other nutrients. Add them to your winter salads, desserts, and smoothies. • Nuts and seeds help you feel full. Just be aware of portion sizes as they can also be high in fat and calories. Add nuts and seeds to smoothies, scrambled eggs, salads or as a quick, tasty snack. • Squash including butternut, acorn, spaghetti, and pumpkin count as superfoods that burst with fiber and antioxidant vitamins. Sautee, puree, roast, and chop into a variety of dishes. Substitute roasted spaghetti squash for regular pasta noodles. • Cabbage is a cruciferous cousin of broccoli, containing many of the same nutritional benefits including helping to reduce cancer risk due to high antioxidant properties. Try it in a soup (see recipe, below this section). • Mustard greens, rich in beta carotene, can be eaten fresh, sauteed, steamed or simmered. They balance out your meat dishes nicely and promote digestion of fats. • Apples are naturally sweet and benefit digestion. They taste great raw, in salads, baked, in desserts or main dishes such as with pork roast or ground into pork burgers. • Carrots are packed with fiber, keeping you feeling full longer. Beta-carotene from carrots is said to protect eye healthy. They’re low in calories and can be eaten as is or added to sautés, soups, smoothies, or salads. • Beetroot is another weight loss friendly food packed with fiber. Use them in salads or juices. Fresh is best for maximum benefits. • Cinnamon is a warm and woody spice that we often think of for dessert or baked goods. Cinnamon naturally helps boost metabolism. Add a dash of cinnamon to your morning coffee, in chili or stew, sprinkled on your toast or in baked apples.
Exercising When It’s Cold Out: Harder to Motivate, But Worth the Effort
Winter’s blustery cold days keep us huddled inside hibernating. It makes it hard to stay motivated to exercise and stay on track through the winter months. But regular exercise when it’s cold out helps keep our spirits up, improves our health and gets us a head-start in creating the body we want in the summer months. Even though it’s harder to get motivated, it’s worth the effort.
There are several ways you can stay motivated when all you want to do is snuggle up and hang out on the sofa.
1. Get an exercise partner or join a group.
When you try to exercise on your own, you don’t have to convince anyone but yourself when you want to skip a session. Exercise partners on the other hand provide social support, distraction, and camaraderie as well as friendship. If you are working out at home, consider joining a live video class.
2. Set a goal to get to the gym.
Focus on putting on your workout clothes and showing up at the gym or in front of your video. Then if you don’t feel like doing a complete work out, do a shortened version. Once you’re there, though you’re more likely to hit your exercise goals. Getting there is the hardest hurdle to jump, but worth the extra motivation that it takes!
3. Set your thermostat in the morning for a cozy temperature so it’s comfortable and ready for you.
Also put your workout clothes near a heater so they are warm when you’re ready to get dressed. When we’re chilly, we tend to not want to move!
4. Sign up for and commit to a fitness challenge.
Challenges hold you accountable and give you a goal. Can’t find any in your area? Why not start one of your own with your 5. Invest in some new gear or workout clothes.
This might be just what gets you excited enough to exercise. The excitement of trying out new equipment will help you get into the habit of exercising.
6. Take your workout outside.
Layer up your clothes and head outside to take a walk, go snow tubing; ski, ice skate or get into any other outdoor fun.
7. Tackle winter tasks.
Shovel snow, pull the kids around on sleds. Start digging your garden beds, why not! There’s always some type of cold-weather work that needs to be done, and doing it yourself gets your heart pumping, your body burning calories, and makes you feel good.
Finding things you enjoy and having others to exercise with will help you stay motivated, so you don’t spend the winter hibernating.
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