One of the best ways to ward off unwanted weight gain is to be active before and after you eat. My wife is great about this. She’ll ask me to go for a brief walk with her, or do yoga for 15 minutes. I used to think it was a waste, because I didn’t classify it as a “real” workout, but it’s great. It gets your heart rate up, gets your muscles working and is so much better than going from the table to the couch and being in a comatose state right after a meal.
The benefit of being active before and after you eat is this: when you work out prior to a meal, your body depletes its energy store and glycogen levels allow you to replace those when you eat. The benefit of working out after you eat is simply burning some of the calories off so they aren’t stored as body fat.
Use this simple rule around meal time. Be active within 30 minutes before eating and 30 minutes after. Use some of the ideas from our blog posts about staying active through the holidays and avoiding holiday weight gain if your need ideas. Good luck!