Brian White | Fitness
A quick online search on holiday weight gain will bring up about 700,000 search results that all say the same thing: If you aren’t careful you will gain 8 – 15 pounds during the holidays.
Thank goodness that isn’t true (although it would be great for business). The truth is we gain between 1 – 4 pounds during the holidays. But the bad news is this holiday weight gain doesn’t come off after the season is over. If you only gain 2 pounds during the holidays, after five years you’ll be 10 pounds heavier.
Now, while it is pretty much a socially accepted norm to pack on a few pounds during the holiday season, the goal should be not to gain even a pound. I’m here to give you a few small things you can do to make sure you don’t gain weight during the holidays.
1. Do not skip meals. Intuition tells us that if we are going to be going overboard with calories at a party, then it might make sense to skip a meal or two earlier in the day to even it out. But the problem with this philosophy is hunger will always win out. Not only will you eat more, you’ll show a preference to high fat and high sugar foods. A better philosophy is to eat a normal day or reduce the calories at each meal by about 20 percent.
2. Treat food like money. Pretend your weekly calorie intake is like your checkbook. If you splurge one day, you are broke for the rest of the week. Same goes for food. If you are going to load up one night, make sure the rest of the week you stick to eating healthy portions. Gaining weight has very little to do with how much you eat at two or three parties over the course of five weeks, it has way more to do with that bowl of cookies your co-workers keep refilling.
3. Shorten your workouts. The holidays are hectic, family and friends drop in and out, Christmas shopping needs to get done, and you need to finish year-end stuff at work. The first thing that will go out the window is your exercise, so shorten your workouts to 30 minutes or less to make sure you don’t miss them. Remember, your body responds much more to the intensity of your exercise than it does to the duration. Shorten your workout and increase the intensity 20 percent.
4. Double your water intake. Water has numerous benefits. A well-hydrated body is an efficient body. It helps the kidneys and liver function properly so you can metabolize fat, not store it. But the main reason you should be drinking a ton of it is because it is the best craving killer I have ever come across. Most of the time when we have a craving, we are actually dehydrated. You mistake thirst for hunger pains and are more likely to reach for a high fat, high sugar food, instead of what your body really needs: water. Set yourself up to succeed by drinking between 80 to 120 ounces every day.
5. Design your behavior. Do you ever look at someone who is super-fit and healthy and wonder why they have all the willpower in the world and you have none? Well, the truth is nobody has anymore or any less willpower, and in fact, willpower is not an endless supply for anyone. Instead, healthy and fit people design their behavior so there are many less situations where they need to exhibit massive amounts of willpower. They alter their environment so that they don’t even need to think about making good decisions; good decisions just happen. When it comes to holiday eating, you can design your behavior to eat less by using a smaller plate, or by not standing by the food table all night, or going to a party satiated so you don’t eat your face off. A little planning will help you build willpower, create good habits and build momentum.
6. Stop rationalizing. We can rationalize anything when it comes holidays and food. “What is one more donut?” or “a few more drinks won’t hurt anything.” Sound familiar? I am not suggesting a life of no indulgences, but be careful because rationalization can be used at too many decision points, slowly eroding your ability to resist anything. At your next holiday party, feed your body only what it needs, not what you think you deserve.
And to pretty much guarantee that your next holiday party is a nutritional disaster, make sure to get in a fight with your significant other on the drive there. That way, you will stuff your face with whatever you want because your stress levels will be out of control, Combine that with a few extra drinks and any willpower you may have had will fly out the window!
OK, OK. Just kidding, but please enjoy the holidays responsibly and let’s make 2013 your best year yet.
—Brian White owns BWF, San Diego’s Premier Training Service located in Hillcrest. He runs boot camps in Balboa Park and trains clients in Diverge Gym. Go to youshouldbedoingit.com to read his blog, or take his seven-day video challenge to get back into healthy habits. Contact Brian at [email protected] or on his website.
