Dec. 2--SILVER CITY -- If the old cliche -- "you are what you eat," -- is true then I think most of us walking around town are gobblers. You see the holidays are upon us and it's time for the weight gain blues with the start of the Thanksgiving holiday. We will find ourselves eating more, visiting friends and family more and taking in deserts and traditional food that will make our bellies bulge.
So what can we do throughout this holiday season to keep our weight maintained and perhaps even lose a couple of pounds, while still being able to enjoy the food? The average Thanksgiving meal is filled with 3,000 to 5,000 calories. Most of us have tons of family, so we find ourselves wandering from house to house on Thanksgiving, and let's just say we ate three meals. That's a whopping 15,000 calories in one day. Let's not get depressed. The turkey with dressing was good. Who can have mashed potatoes without gravy... And to avoid pumpkin pie without whip cream is absurd. Then there was the football games, and we probably consumed some type of alcohol. There were a couple of things we could have done to have limited the intake of calories, but this holiday has come and gone, and we must now focus on the previous days leading up to Christmas.
First of all, exercise is the key to all of our worries. I suggest if you have any kind of medical condition and want to get into a fitness regimen that you seek the opinion and advice of your doctor before you attempt anything. For most of us, getting a gym membership right now is probably the best thing we could do. Not only will you be able to get in and get some exercise, but you will be on the path to feeling better about yourself, and building your body into a fat burning machine for the rest of the month.
To burn off that slice of pumpkin pie, it's estimated that you must do 25 minutes on the elliptical machine. One cup of stuffing equals half an hour on the treadmill. But, an average walk burns about 100 calories a mile. So to burn off the 15,000 calories we ate, we would have to walk about 150 miles. No one is going to do that after Thanksgiving, but, if we hit the gym a little extra on Wednesday, and again on Friday, we could have burned off a lot more than we thought.
This holds true for the rest of the month. If you are used to going to the gym three times a week, try and get there four times or perhaps five times. Do a little more cardio than you normally do. Mix it up every day to keep your body guessing and improving and too keep you from getting burnt out on the same old routine. Add a weight training program into your workout. Here you can't get caught up with losing weight, because muscle weighs more than fat, but muscle also burns more calories to maintain it. You will see inches come off if a weight training regimen is added to your workout.
In Grant County we have a lot of gyms that have convenient hours to fit everyone's needs. Diamond's Gym opens at 4 a.m. and closes at 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. The Billy Casper Wellness Center is open from 5 a.m. until 9 p.m. during the week. Iniguez Physical Therapy has two gyms -- one in Bayard and one in Silver City -- and their hours are from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. throughout the week. Iron Works Gym has hours of 5 a.m. until 9 p.m.
So the hardest part of this month's exercise program is going to be getting to the gym. But, let's say we can't get a membership or want to do some other type of exercise this month. In Grant County it's pretty cold and that means a lot of outdoor activities aren't a good idea. But, there are several other activities that we can do to help us burn off the calories.
Basketball can be played indoors and according to the ACE website (America's Council of Exercise), playing a game of basketball burns between 7.5 and 11.5 calories a minute. If you head over to the Silver Bowling Center, you can burn 1-2 calories a minute. Social dancing can burn an estimated 3-4.5 calories a minute. If you want to get outdoors, cycling can take off 5.5 to 8.5 calories a minute. If you are a golfer and want to carry your clubs or pull them at the Silver City Golf Course, you can burn off between 4.5 and 7 calories a minute. Jogging around town can burn between 9.5 and 14 calories a minute. In the great outdoors, hiking is pretty popular. This rugged activity burns approximately 600 calories on the trail in an hour or about 700 off trail. And that old trip to the gym just to weight lift can burn between 6.5 and 10 calories a minute.
Remember the key here is that we only get out of the activity what we put into it. That means we can't go through the motions. When your involved in any activity, push yourself a little bit and make sure that you are actually working out.
Now that exercise is out of the way, we can focus on the food we are going to eat. Depravation diets don't work. They never have, and to skip breakfast and lunch so that we can consume that tamale plate with cheesecake for dinner is absurd. We have to continue to eat, but reducing our portions is the key to being sensible about the holiday food we consume. Eat one tamale versus two. Make sure the side of rice and beans is shortened as well. Don't drink two beers. Have one instead. If you are going to have desert, don't take two pieces of pie, reduce it to one. Cookies are a big hit also throughout the holidays. Eat only a couple. Don't sit there and consume 30 or so. Eat only one bowl of menudo versus two or three.
Willpower is the key to this holiday season, and knowing when to say no or when to limit your portion will go a long way in helping us maintain our weight and figure. The reward will be when we can fit into that New Year's Eve dress or outfit that we have been saving up for. The energy we feel and the sense of well being that our body gives us is also what we can look forward too. And, don't forget, we won't have to make a New Year's Resolution of dropping weight because we would have already been on track to carry this regimen the whole year through.
Danny Udero may be reached at dudero@scsun-news.com; (575) 538-5893.
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