3 Tips To Quickly Lose Those Holiday Pounds

I hope you all had a terrific Thanksgiving! It was wonderful spending time with family! I have so many things to be thankful for! During the week of Thanksgiving, Hubby and I decided to take a mini vacation to see the Ark Encounter in Kentucky. It was incredible! Crossed that one off of our bucket list! 

I don't know about you, but between taking a mini vacation and Thanksgiving, a few extra pounds have instantly been added to the scale! So, my goal is to lose those pounds as quickly as I put them on! Hopefully!👍

Hubby has recently lost 16 pounds, mostly from changing his eating habits and portions. I'm so proud of him! We enjoy eating healthy meals and snacks, but we also enjoy indulging once in awhile. We try to balance it all out. We expected a small gain from vacation and Thanksgiving.

Now that we are home and back to regular day to day living, we are looking forward to some healthy eating! The easiest way to eat healthy between the holidays, is to plan and cook healthy meals! I know this isn't a ground breaking weightloss program that will magically erase the pounds from the last week. But, I thought I'd share with you some of my tips and favorite healthy meals that I will be making in the weeks ahead.

First, we both hop on the scale and face reality and acknowledge what we've gained. Most people tend to gain during the holidays.  That's fine, but we don't want to keep gaining or live in denial. So, it's important to attack it before a few pounds turn into 20 pounds. I've found it's easier to face the truth, even if I don't like what the scale says, because then I can actually do something about it.  

Next, we commit to eating healthy and cutting out extra calories, like processed foods and sugary foods. Now, I realize that there are a lot of parties and fun events during this time of year.  We all like to indulge during those functions.... but they don't happen every single day.  So, it's important to take that into account. We try to eat healthy all the days in between. 😊  This is really important. Many people tend to start indulging and then don't stop. This is where you can get into some serious trouble.

This is my job.  It takes time to plan, shop and cook healthy dinners, but it is soooo worth it! This is the game changer here. I have a saying I use quite a bit. 

"Plan nothing, nothing happens." 

Now, I realize that isn't always true, but for the most part, I believe it is. When we don't plan meals, we're not sure what to make.  Trying to figure it out at the last minute usually results in 'a not so healthy' meal. We might feel tired or lazy and don't want to take the time to cook, so we'll stop and get take-out or a pizza. The busier we are the more this seems to happen, and this is a busy season!

Planning takes out the guess work and makes it easier to follow through.  It just makes life so much easier! I keep a list of our favorite healthy dinners that I rotate throughout the month. Pinterest also is a great resource. I enjoy trying new recipes.

Here are a few of our favorites:

Spaghetti Squash Chicken Bacon Broccoli Casserole

Chicken and Veggies

Super easy!! I just cut up some chicken breasts into chunks, sauté until done.  I purchase frozen vegetables in the California blend and sometimes a broccoli stir fry blend.  Then I cook the bags of frozen vegetables in the microwave, and add them to the chicken chunks.  You can add a few spices or sauces if you want.  This is such a quick and easy meal!

Another tip is to make soup in big batches and freeze individual servings.  This comes in handy in those situations where you just don't feel like cooking.  I get that! I don't always want to! So in reality, you are planning for that to happen.

I LOVE having tons of soups in the freezer. Fall and winter are soup season! This is such a time saver and you have a healthy soup for dinner. It's so easy to add a quick salad along with it!

Here are some of our favorite soups:

I definitely have not enough posts on my favorite soups! That is going to change!!

You can also check out my Soup Pinterest Board.  I have a bunch of them there. 😊

Easy Fall Fajita Soup

Tomato Basil Soup
This one is super easy to make and tastes amazing!!
Autumn Squash Soup (Panera Copycat)
I just tried this one and it is soooo good! Especially if you love that soup at Panera!

It also helps to add veggies or a salad to every meal you can. Seriously, we need more of them in all of our meals!! For breakfast, I like to add spinach, onions and peppers to some eggs or make a spinach smoothie! Those are sooo good!

Pumpkin Spice Spinach Smoothie

Just making a few small adjustments can add up to big results!

Blessings!