A Few Facts About Holiday Weight Gain

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Such as, it’s the gift that keeps on giving

Now that you’ve finally finished digesting the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers, with the self-inflicted damage to your diet a fait accompli, you may be asking yourself the time-honored question, “Is it even remotely possible that I won’t put on a good 10 pounds this holiday season?” Relax. Well, maybe only relax a little. When asked in surveys, we estimate our holiday weight gain at about five pounds, but a classic study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that on average, adult Americans actually gain just one pound during the period from mid-November through New Year’s Day.

The media gave this finding a lot of ink when it came out, and a host of Americans mopped their brows with relief and washed down a second helping of dressing and gravy with a glass of eggnog. And indeed, this study would constitute good news if not for two unpleasant qualifiers.

First qualifier: For most of us, researchers have found, that pound does not go away. It’s still there a year later, waiting to welcome the next added pound from the following holiday season, and helping to explain why we become inexorably heftier with the passage of the years.

Second qualifier: That one-pound overall average includes a lot of thin and normal-weight people. For persons who are overweight to begin with, however, that number can spike to five pounds or more. Since two-thirds of us now qualify as overweight, two-thirds of us are at risk for more additional weight gain in the next six weeks than is really good for us, especially given that weight’s tendency to remain with us. And even for those of us who are not overweight, that one pound represents fully 50 percent of the weight that U.S. adults gain per year on average.

In sum, the prospect of massive holiday weight gain is not as dire as you may fear, but it’s nothing to dismiss lightly, either. And much of the damage may have already been done, with the recent Thanksgiving meal. A study of college students found that they gained between one-half pound and two pounds just over Thanksgiving break, depending on their weight going in. And those are young adults, with young adult metabolisms and activity levels.

If all this gives you cause for concern, and it probably should, it’s not too late to engage in some serious damage control. For tips on how to do so, you can Google some variation on “avoiding holiday weight gain” and find hours of handy-hint reading pleasure, but it really boils down to the basics. Avoid food and booze. Literally. Don’t hang out in kitchens, either your own or other people’s. In holiday party situations, position yourself away from the buffet and the bar.

Remember that snacks, appetizers and finger foods that abound during the holidays are sneaky little calorie grenades. And that alcohol not only packs major calories, but lowers your resistance to the snacks, appetizers, etc. If it helps, eat something low-cal and healthy before heading off to wherever the food and alcohol will be served, but don’t go crazy — just enough to put a dent in your appetite.

It is admittedly hard, and for some people downright wrenching, to maintain self-control and self-denial during the official Season of Goodies. Maybe this will help. Just think of each of those pastries or cocktails or second helpings or other temptations as akin to a tattoo: you’d better really like it, because it will be part of you from now on.

(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News):

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A Few Facts About Holiday Weight Gain is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog

Source: http://calorielab.com/news/2012/11/28/a-few-facts-about-holiday-weight-gain/

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