No matter how much you promised yourself you would resist those holiday treats, your willpower broke. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, it’s nearly impossible to fully say no to all of those decadent sweets that make their appearances once per year. Fear not, though. While you might fear for your waistline, the extra pounds you put on won’t be permanent if you work hard to sweat them off.

Lift Weights

While cardio is often portrayed as the weight loss exercise, lifting weights is actually far better in that arena. The reason for this is that it gets your body working even while you’re not working out. During weight lifting, you are damaging your muscles so that when you aren’t working out, your body is burning fuel to repair and rebuild them. With cardio, the work only happens during the workout itself.

Swim

A mixture of resistance training and cardio, swimming is a little bit of both worlds. In addition, it’s the best exercise when it comes to preserving joint integrity. Where running puts continued, sudden pressure on the body, the weightlessness of swimming means far less shock even though the water resistance amps up just how hard the body has to work to move.

Exercise Self-Control

Finally, you won’t lose any weight if you don’t go back to exercising self-control in regards to your diet. No amount of exercise will help you lose those pounds if you can’t say no to unhealthy foods like soda, candy and burgers. While you might think of this as a copout, self-control is something you have to practice as much as, if not more than, physical exercise. Abs, after all, are made in the kitchen.