7 tips on how to lose the holiday weight gain (and how to maintain a healthy lifestyle for the whole year)

If December is the month of munching on good food, January is the other side of it. It's the month when people try to lose the holiday weight they've gained from all the parties and gatherings.

Below we have listed down simple but realistic tips from Coach Jeredan Conde, a certified and professional fitness trainer who has been in the industry for over 15 years. The best thing about this? Coach has a YouTube channel called Tito Fit, so you can follow through with your fitness goals throughout the year.

1. Lift weights

While the more popular belief is to do a lot of cardio exercises, Coach Jerdy recommends lifting weights to lose weight.

"When you do cardio, your body only burns calories during the workout," Coach said. Lifting weights meanwhile, actually speeds up your metabolism.

He said "when you lift weights, you burn less calories while lifting, but it speeds up your metabolism for up to 36 hours after your workout, so you end up burning more calories in the long run."

Aside from all these, Coach Jerdy said "lifting weights builds muscle... muscle is metabolic tissue, meaning muscle needs calories (mostly in the form of protein) simply to exist in your body."

2. Do metcons

Metcons, short for "metabolic conditioning," is when you combine "lifting weights, body weight exercises, and exercises traditionally done as cardio like runniny, rowing, cycling, and jumping rope to ramp up the intensity."  

Coach Jerdy recommends playing up your weights routine with metcons. 

3. Focus on eating protein

To reverse the holiday weight gain, Coach Jerdy said it's good to focus on eating protein from high quality sources like meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and whey.

"Make sure to track how much you're eating in some way (I recommend using an app like MyFitnessPal)," he said.

"Remember that you cannot lose weight if you're eating more calories than you burn," he added, referencing the CICO method, that is Calories In, Calories Out.

Coach Jerdy said "whatever remains in your caloric requirements after eating the right amount of protein, you can allot a mix of carbs and fat depending on what foods you prefer more."

"If you're inclined to do a ketogenic type diet, this would mean you focus more on fat after protein; if you're inclined to enjoy carbs more, then that would mean less fat and more foods such as rice and whole grains," he added.

4. Eat your greens

As cliche as it may sound, eating your greens is still one of the keys to a healthier diet.

Coach Jerdy said it is important "to eat a lot of vegetables for gut health, fiber, and micronutrients (vitamins, antioxidants, etc.)."

5. Make small but sustainable changes with your diet

"If you've been eating a lot of sweets for a long time, focus on reducing portions or frequency first rather than completely cutting them out right away for long-term adherence," Coach Jerdy said.

"It's more about building a new lifestyle rather than doing an intervention," he added.

6. Treat your workout like an important appointment

A minimum of three times a week at around one hour per workout is the most sustainable routine one can do, Coach Jerdy said.

To be able to stick to it, Coach Jerdy recommends treating "your workout like a very important appointment for the day, instead of doing it if you have time left after everything else."

"It takes time to build habits whether good or bad [and] so you won't be undoing the damage you've done to your body over a couple of years in one month," he added.

Coach Jerdy said you have to prepare yourself with a mindset. "Nothing good comes easy and you'll have more realistic expectations instead of quitting after a month because you didn't lose 20 lbs after one month."

7. Make it a lifestyle not a resolution

January is the time when everyone is raring to hit the gym, and as the months go by, people start to lose their habits. Why is that?

Coach Jerdy said it's because people have "unrealistic expectations or thinking that getting a body that you want can be maintained without working out and eating properly in a consistent manner."

He said most people think that once they lose the holiday weight, they can stop working out and eating right. But that's not the case.

"All those people in your vision boards or 'body goals,' they work out and eat right consistently," he said.

"It's as much a part of their daily life as brushing your teeth or your skincare routine. Make it a part of your life, not a resolution," he added.

For more health and fitness tips you can subscribe on Tito Fit's YouTube channel.