10 Tips to Avoid Weight Gain During the Holidays

The weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day can be the most challenging for those striving to lose (or maintain) their weight. The abundance of cookies, rich desserts, and beverages, combined with increased stress levels, lack of sleep, and sedentary lifestyles, leads to the perfect storm for veering off track. Plus, we often give ourselves unspoken “permission” to over-indulge. It’s the holidays, after all.

Studies vary on how much weight is gained during the holidays, but the average seems to be between 1 – 6 pounds. The trouble is that most people never take that weight off, so over the years, those pounds can really add up.

Let’s set a goal to “maintain without gain” this holiday season. Here are 10 tips that will help us stay festive while avoiding the extra pounds:

1. Sanitize your environment! Stop bringing junk food, sweets, cheese trays and candy into your house, your office, your car, or wherever you spend time. Be kind to yourself by avoiding a mental and physical battle over a package of cookies. If it’s at your disposal, it will most likely call your name until you devour it. But if the cookies aren’t there in the first place, you win.

2. Let healthy foods crowd out the bad ones. Plan ahead and always have plenty of healthy foods and snacks on hand so they’re ready when you are. (Note: the key words here are PLAN AHEAD. Don’t wait until a craving hits.)

3. Pre-load. Choose a salad with low-fat dressing, vegetable soup, an apple, or simply a big glass of water before each meal. Pre-loading has been shown to reduce the number of calories eaten overall during a meal. Consuming foods low in calorie-density when you’re the hungriest means you’re likely to eat more of them; plus, pre-loading allows time for your satiety hormones to kick in.

4. Front-load your calories by eating more food earlier in the day, and less as the day goes on. Because of our circadian rhythms, age, metabolism, and other factors, food eaten at night, especially after 7:00 pm, is more fattening than the exact food eaten earlier in the day.

5. Parties and Family Gatherings. Know what you’re going to eat before you head over to Aunt Dorothy’s house. Bring a crock pot of soup, a casserole, a salad, and/or a dessert that suits a healthy lifestyle; and perhaps eat a little something at home before you leave so you won’t be famished later.

6. Skipping certain events is OK! If a gathering is going to be too stressful or too tempting, it’s OK to say no! Everyone is busy at this time of year. Even though you’d LOVE to attend the cookie exchange, it’s fine to say you have a prior commitment.

7. Watch out for those added fats! Holiday foods – even plant-based ones – can be surprisingly rich and calorie-dense. Think creamy casseroles, nut-based cheeses, and decadent desserts. While these plant-based goodies are delicious and festive, they’re often high in fats and sugars that can add up quickly. With so many gatherings and indulgent options, it’s easy to go overboard.

8. Don’t drink your calories. Sugary beverages such as sodas, holiday punch, sweet teas, and lattes are one of the biggest contributors to weight gain. Make water your first beverage choice, followed by herbal teas. If you miss the ‘fizziness’ of pop, try some carbonated water with just a bit of cranberry or other fruit juice.

9. Move. So often meals around the holidays mean that you eat a ton of food and then go watch the game or sit around for a few hours after. This season make a commitment to get up and move! Take a walk in the morning, go for a family walk after a meal. Go play a game of touch football with your friends, go sledding or ice skating.

10. Don’t make it about the food. Holidays don’t have to mean gluttonous eating – nor do they mean deprivation! Enjoy your friends and family, play games, have a sing-along, and focus on the purpose of the holiday…spending time with those you care about. You might even volunteer to help others in some way.

Remember, the holidays will be gone before you know it.

Won’t it be nice to wake up on New Year’s Day without feeling bloated and knowing that you haven’t gained one extra pound? If you still have some weight to lose, at least you haven’t added more pounds that you’ll need to deal with in the coming year. But that’s a topic for another day.