10 Easy Steps to Lose FAT FAST Before Your Vacation

Yikes! It's a month before our vacation and we realize that our stomach is flabby. We could lecture ourselves about life-long eating habits, or developing a daily exercise regime, but now is not the time. There is a flab emergency growing on our stomach and thighs!

Here is the tested regime we do a month before vacation. These are simple, and while you may already know them, we show easy ways to make them work. Get out a post-it and take note to start these today.

1: Keep your metabolism going all day.

• Start the day with something as simple as 20 jumping jacks, walking the dog, or jogging in place for 5 minutes.
• After dinner go for a walk, run the stairs in your house, clean, or do more jumping jacks.
• Park farther from the door, take the stairs, don't watch TV.
• Eat 6 small meals per day at least 3 hours apart and no closer than 2 hours together. For example, 6:30 AM breakfast, 9:00 AM snack, 12:00 PM lunch, 3:00 PM snack, 6:00 PM dinner, 8:30 PM egg-white snack (see below).

2: Prevent night eating.

• Cook up lots of hardboiled eggs. Somewhere between dinner and bedtime eat 2-4 egg whites (discard the yolks). The protein keeps you full and the digestion keeps up your metabolism up through the night.
• To help prevent night eating, brush and floss teeth right after eating egg whites.

3: Exercise longer.

If you get on the treadmill or elliptical machine for 40 minutes instead of 20 you will see better results in loosing fat. If you can't get to the gym each day, it's better to do 3 days of 40 minutes than 5 days of 20 minutes in battling flab.

4: Exercise on an empty stomach.

If you can do this, it helps burn fat faster. Then, eat within 30 minutes of completing your workout. This is a body-builder secret to look super lean before competitions.

5: Carry healthy, low-calorie snacks in your purse or car.

Our favorite is low-fat string cheese, the protein helps keep you full and the glycemic index is low (meaning it is low in sugars).

6: Plan and pre-prepare your meals/snacks.

Remember, we are talking about loosing fat fast - you need to be objective when you make or choose food. Make your breakfast, lunch and snacks the night before. If you are moms like us, you tend to prepare in advance everyone else's food but your own. If you divvy out your food in advance, you won't end up eating 20 corn chips with your salsa. Don't wait until you're hungry to prepare meals.

7: Eat only true serving sizes and limit carbohydrates.

You know the drill on serving sizes, meat the size of a deck of cards, half an apple, 1/3 a banana, 1 cup of berries, etc. Try WASA brand crackers in lieu of bread, take the bun off and cut that burger in half, say no to white (rice, bread, sugar).

8: Stop or reduce lattes (for a month).

You hear this all the time, but why are lattes bad? I use non-fat milk!? A non-fat latte is about 60-90 calories depending on the size and amount of milk. The problem isn't just the total calories, it's the glycemic index on non-fat milk. To your body, non-fat milk acts a lot like pure sugar creating more flab on your stomach. We switch to Americanos or drip coffee during this month. You could even put in 1 tablespoon of half and half (only 20 calories and a better glycemic index).

9: Drink 2-3 liters of water per day.

Many times when you feel hungry, your body is just thirsty. Water also helps flush out excess salts that can create fluid retention and give you a "fatter" appearance.

10: Wear a band or special bracelet each day.

We use this to quickly remember our goal. It's easier to say "no thanks" when those gourmet truffles or homemade cookies arrive in the office if we have a friendly reminder of our goal.

Join us in the battle against vacation flab! Write in how these tips helped you, or how you modified them to work. Share your tips on loosing fat fast and help other readers.

Comments

[Beverly at Spot On Ideas]

I wanted to let you know that we posted this today because I am going through this right now. I realized I am flying out for vacation in 29 days and where did all that fat come from? I'm sure it wasn't there a week ago! In talking to a friend about my dilemma and solution, she suggest we post our tips (she used our regime 2 yrs ago before her wedding with great success). Amara and I came to these through a few years of "self-research" in preparation for wedddings, trips, and post-babies. If you do all 10, they really do work to get off fat fast. Good luck, and I'll keep everyone posted on my attempt.