It’s Sunday, a day off for everyone in the family, there’s no stress of getting stuck in the rush hour, and since it’s weekend, it’s also a time to chill, hit the party scene, go out for family brunches, and basically let your guards down. But if you are trying to lose weight, dropping your guard during weekends can seriously mar all the hard work and extra efforts that you put in through the entire week. Most of us who follow a weight loss diet tend to schedule “cheat meals” on weekends (particularly on Sundays) because that’s when we meet up with our friends, family, and basically socialize. However, without us even realizing, cheat meals often get converted into “cheat day” and a day full of overeating and snacking. However, Sunday can also be taken as a wonderful opportunity to reset and plan for the week ahead so that your weight loss journey runs smoothly, absolutely without any hitch. In this post, we list out 8 things to do on a Sunday to lose weight through the week. Read on:
1. Starting Day with a Nutritious Breakfast instead of Dessert Breakfast: It’s considered the most important meal of the day, and experts recommend it be a nutritious and healthy one rather than high-calorie and dessert-kind of breakfast such as bread and jam, sugary cereals, waffles, packaged juices, biscuits, etc. These are some of the worst breakfast options, even for a lazy Sunday, because they are packed with loads of empty calories and they would also keep your cravings for unhealthy food high through the day. Stick to the nutritious breakfast options on the Rati Beauty diet to continue losing weight successfully.
2. Planning Groceries for the Entire Week: Planning and shopping for groceries in advance will help eliminate the chances of picking up unhealthy, processed, and ultra-processed foods. With groceries all planned out, you can avoid unhealthy treats as well and stick to your diet plan. For additional help, here’s a list of List of “99 Grocery Items that any Dietician Would Approve.”
3. Meal Prepping: Use the extra time on Sunday to prepare healthy meals for the week ahead. This meal prepping will reduce the stress that’s involved with preparing healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner for the entire week. This will ensure that you are clean eating through the week and not going off the diet program on any day of the week. In fact, chop up veggies, fruits, and other ingredients while binge watching your favorite series on TV, and stock up them in the refrigerator for the week ahead – you can thank us later for giving you this amazing idea!
4. Plan your Workout: Just like meal prepping, planning out workout for the week ahead would help you keep motivated to workout on designated days, leaving little room to make any excuses to miss exercise. For example, you can workout biceps on Monday, legs on Tuesday, shoulders on Wednesday, and so on. The key is to plan ahead and stick to that plan.
5. Plan Healthy Snacks: It’s quite common to have hunger pangs at 4 pm everyday, but to pick processed food with high fat, sugar, transfat content not only supplies a lot of calories, they are also devoid of any fiber or nutrients, and hence cause sharp rise and crash in blood sugar levels, and this decline in blood sugar, would make us hungry all over again. It would do your weight loss efforts a good deal if you opt for snacks mentioned on the Rati Beauty diet instead to satisfy your cravings.
6. Household Chores Lose Weight: Not hitting the gym on a Sunday? No probs! It’s not necessary to hit the gym or workout at home every single day. You can torch some serious calories just doing some basic household chores. These household chores come under NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) and is the amount of energy we use for everything in our daily life, barring sleeping and exercising. Using the stairs instead of the lift, squatting on the floor to lift something up, walking while talking on the phone – every activity we do while being on our feet, comes under NEAT, and the same applies for household chores. All these activities help to burn tiny amount of calories through the day, and when they add up, you have torched up a significant amount. Some studies have revealed that one can burn up to 150 calories in one hour by doing household chores and NEAT activities! Here’s a list of “12 Household Chores That Would Help Burn Calories” that you can do on a Sunday.
7. Clean out the Kitchen/Pantry/Refrigerator: Clear out the pantry and kitchen of unhealthy food. Get rid of all processed food. If you have leftovers from the previous weekend’s takeout dinner, throw it out. When your kitchen is devoid of unhealthy food, there are lesser chances of you indulging in them when you are under stress or just feeling bored.
8. Catch up on Sleep: Sleeping for 7 hours or more every night is extremely important for losing weight, but how many of us manage to get 7 hours of sleep every day of the week? Use weekends to catch up on sleep and recharge and reboot for the gruelling week ahead.
9. Include an outdoor activity during weekends: Indulge in outdoor activities during the weekend – gardening, cycling, walking, outdoor games, they all help you to burn significant calories.
10. Find Ways To De-Stress: Losing weight can be a stressful process and if you are chronically under stress (personal, professional, psychosocial, physical, etc.), it can prove to be an uphill battle. Studies have found a direct link between stress and weight gain, and that’s why it’s important to find ways to de-stress, and Sunday is a good time to plan stress-releasing activities. Watching a funny movie, getting a massage done, doing outdoor activities, pursuing a hobby, catching up with friends, are some activities that a majority of people find to be stress busters. Follow what suits you better, so that you feel rejuvenated to take on the world in the coming week.
With these tips, you would never fall off track on a Sunday!
List of 99 Grocery Items that any Dietician Would Approve
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