C-O-L-O-R: The Hot New Way to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

Instead of adding jelly to your belly this holiday season, try adding color to your calendar.

Saint Paul, MN (PRWEB) November 19, 2004 -- It's easy to put on weight during the holidays-an extra cookie here, a half a turkey there-yikes, it all adds up. Instead of adding jelly to your belly this holiday season, try adding color to your calendar. The creator of the Streaming Colors Fitness Journal, a calendar you color in with your positive fitness actions each day, suggests you set a few small goals for yourself early in the season, so you can enjoy some of the holiday treats and not feel deprived. With color and a little restraint, you can start the New Year with better fitness habits, rather than regrets and extra pounds.

We created our 16-month 2005 calendar for people who dont want to let the holidays undo their fitness program," says Stillwater MN based Jennifer Luhrs, creator and publisher of the new 2005 Streaming Colors Fitness Journal. The calendar helps you track the things you do daily to improve your fitness and health. Yellow could show a treadmill workout, red could indicate strength training, green might celebrate a cookie-free day, and blue could show how much water you drank.

Luhrs, 54, has used her calendar system since 1999 to exercise more, eat better and gradually shed 40 pounds. She suggests setting small, realistic, achievable goals such as one of the following, to help prevent your holiday eating from turning into an all-or-nothing free-for-all:

- Limit your holiday treats to one treat day" a week, when you can eat anything you please (and try to follow that up with a good workout or extra physical activity.) On the Streaming Colors calendar you would color in the days you turned down the treats, and would then use a special color for your treat day." This can be a good strategy to accommodate holiday parties.

- Limit yourself to one small treat per day. Enjoy every bite, but resist the temptation to indulge in two, three, or four (or more!) times the calories. Celebrate your victory by coloring in each day you succeed in limiting yourself to one treat. This can be a good strategy if youre constantly being faced with holiday treats in the workplace.

- Set a cut-off time for eating treats and when you succeed, reward yourself by coloring in the day. While this may not be as effective as the first two strategies, some restraint is better than none, and this could be a good strategy if you have to deal with a lot of treats around the house.

-If you just can't say no to all the goodies around you, then increase your activity level. Turn off the television during the holidays and take the kids out to play. Go skiing, caroling, build a snowman, or just take a walk after the big holiday meal.

The 16-month 2005 Streaming Colors Fitness Journal is available at streamingcolors.com. If you like giving gifts that last all year long and that help promote fitness, you can learn more about the 12-month Streaming Colors Fitness Journal (MSRP $15.95) at streamingcolors.com and at amazon.com.

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