How to Survive the Holliday Season without Gaining a Ton of Weight

In the gym industry, January 1^st signifies the beginning of “peak season”, the three-to-four month phase when it seems like everybody is motivated to get started and finally get in shape.

Much of this has to do with the concept of “starting over”. Human beings love the idea of a “fresh start”. For those of you who have tried dieting in the past, how many of you started your diets on a Wednesday? None. As everybody knows, pretty much all diets are started on Mondays! (Or, if you really want to be technical, all diets are started “tomorrow”, with tomorrow being a never-arriving day!) If you are currently on a somewhat structured or strict eating plan, and you happen to mess up in the middle of the day, what happens? Chances are, if you are human, you will continue to mess up throughout the rest of the day!

Most people have a very “all-or-nothing” approach to life– good or bad, right or wrong, black or white. The problem is, this way of thinking can be used to justify bad habits and perpetuate problems that need to be dealt with in the immediate.

Holliday Eating

Statistically speaking, very few people in our country will actually lose weight over the Holliday season (between Thanksgiving and January 1^st). Most individuals will struggle with weight and eating issues over the next 6 weeks. University of Texas SW Medical Center estimates that most only gain 1-2lbs over the holidays, but many put the estimate closer to 5lbs. This isn’t an insurmountable amount of weight, per se, but if it is an annual phenomenon, it definitely adds up and lends itself toward long-term obesity and weight-management issues. Ten years down the road, you can expect to be between ten and fifty pounds heavier. This can be particularly frustrating if you are already trying to make behavioral changes and get more fit and healthy. For any of you regularly attending the club, working with a trainer, or just trying to get in better shape, the holidays can indeed be a disheartening struggle.

So what can we do to minimize the impact of the holiday season? Below are some general tips that will help get you through the next six weeks, giving you a head start against the tribe of New Year’s Resolutionists:

Clean Eating

First and foremost, a daily focus on eating “clean” is going to be the greatest weapon in your arsenal. What exactly is “clean eating”? Tosca Reno, author of The Eat-Clean Diet, defines “clean eating” as follows: Clean eating is “eating the way nature intended…. You eat the foods our bodies evolved to function best on, and that makes you feel– and look– fantastic. When you Eat Clean you eat more often. You will eat lean protein, complex carbs, and health fats. These practices keep your blood-sugar levels stable and keep you satisfied” (http://www.eatcleandiet.com/about_the_diet/what_is_eating_clean.aspx).

In a nutshell, “eating clean” can best be described as eating real foods versus eating food products. Eating something that comes out of a wrapper, or out of a box, or out of a can, is most likely a food product. Eating real foods– fruits, vegetables, lean proteins like poultry and fish, and certain complex carbs like oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and brown rice, is sticking to the foods provided naturally to our bodies. This helps immensely to regulate blood sugar and the body’s hormones in general, which allows the body to stay lean and metabolically efficient.

The issue of “clean eating” is really the overarching issue of how to eat in general to lose weight. If you want the most dummy-proof method of “eating healthy” or “eating clean”, here’s a simple rule to live by: if it doesn’t grow on its own, don’t eat it! So what grows on its own? Veggies, fruits, animals (protein sources) and dairy, nuts, and a delimited amount of starches. Pies certainly don’t grow on their own, and neither does ice cream!

Your meals should be focused around getting in a balance of lean proteins from sources like chicken, egg whites, and fish, along with low-glycemic carbohydrate sources like fruits, veggies, and whole-grains, and a certain amount of healthy fat. If you move in this direction with your eating, regardless of time of year, you will be successful in keeping the fat off and being fit and healthy.

Enjoying Life While Following Rules

In my experience, having worked with hundreds of clients over the years, the hardest thing about the holidays is the whole “lingering food”, or “leftovers” phenomenon. Many were raised with the mindset that it is an absolute sin to waste food, or throw it out! Unfortunately, that rule no longer really applies in a modern-day context. We have an over-abundance of food in this country, and that overabundance is the primary cause of the current obesity epidemic. Yet most continue to refuse to throw out food, using their bodies instead as the human garbage disposal.

Much of this is about making rational decisions, rather than emotional decisions. If you emotionally feel guilty about wasting food by throwing it out, chances are good you will hold onto it. And if you hold onto the food, chances are good you will end up eating the majority of it, even though your body doesn’t need it. So on the whole, you will end up gaining weight and increasing the likelihood of health problems down the road, rather than the momentary discomfort of simply throwing away some leftovers.

This can be seen during Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, you name it. It is definitely harder if you have children in the house (good luck throwing out your kid’s excess candy!). The key is to be as smart as the situation will allow you to be.

If you are going to somebody else’s house for Thanksgiving, things will be a little easier because, chances are, most of the leftovers will stay at the host’s house and not come home to yours. If you happen to be hosting, one thing you can do is divvy up leftovers with the other guests, sending them all home with a post-holiday plate. One deliciously hedonistic and gluttonous meal is not going to do that much damage to anybody; and in fact, even two meals will not do so! But picking at the plates for the next 10 days will definitely add up!

The moral of the story: allow yourself to enjoy Thanksgiving, and maybe even some leftovers. But don’t feel compelled to eat an entire twenty-pound turkey and several bowls of stuffing and potatoes in the following days. If it will help your overall goals, throw out the leftovers and get back to your regular eating plan as soon as possible following the holiday.

Social Outings

Beyond the obvious Thanksgiving dinner (and days following), there is the issue of parties. Around the holidays, it seems there is a never-ending series of parties and social outings to attend, all of which have their own dietary dilemmas. The holiday season is a time for cheer and happiness, after all, and it makes sense to celebrate with family, friends, coworkers, and loved ones. However, if the overall effect is counterproductive to your larger life-goals, you might find yourself with a little buyer’s remorse come January One.

So how do we eat intelligently around Holiday Parties? A lot of it comes down to planning. If you know you will be going to an office party on Saturday night, your best bet is to eat clean throughout the day. Do NOT try to scale back on your normal clean-eating intake; this will only make you ravenously hungry come nighttime, and you will in fact double up on the junk, leading to results that are twice as bad.

About an hour or so before you leave the house for the party, sit down and have a healthy meal. This is very similar to the concept of eating before you go grocery shopping. If you are going to a friend’s house, a bar or a restaurant where there is going to be tons of delicious food and drink, you will be far less likely to binge and over-indulge if your belly is already somewhat filled up with good options.

Once at the party, try to follow some common-sense rules to minimize damage. Stick to water or diet soda. Eggnog is, hands down, one of THE most caloric food-stuffs on the planet, with one cup yielding 343 calories, 19g fat, and 35g carbs. To give you an idea of contrast, a Big Mac from McDonalds has about 580 calories. So if you have a whopping 14oz of eggnog– less than two cups– you have actually consumed more calories than a Big Mac! And this is BEFORE adding all the delicious alcohol, mind you!

When at parties, once the food is revealed, try to start with a veggie plate to fill up a little bit. Move on to protein sources. Save sweets for the very end, and even then, be judicious in what you select. You don’t need to sample every single item on the tray. Pick what seems most appealing, enjoy it, and then be done, simple as that.

Keep Working Out!

Tracing this all back to the all-or-nothing mindset of most individuals, many start blowing off the gym during holiday season, on the premise of, “Well, I’m eating like crap anyways, might as well not work out. After all, what’s the point? I’m not going to lose any weight.”

Well, this might be true. But wouldn’t it be better to at least stay neutral, than to positively backslide? If you’ve already resigned yourself to not eating very well over the next few months, you could at LEAST continue working out vigorously several times a week to try to limit weight gain, or negate it completely. Yes, you could put everything on the backburner until January 1^st, but then it’s going to be that much more difficult from a behavioral standpoint to get back into the groove of working out regularly. Your muscles will hurt all over again just like they did in the beginning, your endurance will be down, your energy will be lower, and the task in front of you will be that much greater. No matter how bad your eating habits happen to be over the holiday season, continue to train hard and reap the benefits of being dedicated to fitness and health.

Conclusion

I, personally, have always been a big fan of starting a diet on an odd date– middle of the week, for instance, or December 28^th. I like the idea of “getting a leg up” and not getting lost in the pack. I think it shows a certain dedication and mindset that is lacking with those who start on January 1^st. Yes, you can still enjoy life during the holiday season, and maybe even “loosen up” a little bit, but that is no reason to completely give up on your fitness and physique goals. Continue to train hard, eat clean, shop smart, and plan ahead, and you might even be further along come the end of the year, then you were heading into the holiday season!