Thursday, December 1, 2011

Can You Avoid Holiday Weight Gain?


We spent the four-day Thanksgiving weekend with kids and grands. In addition to the turkey day food-fest, we also celebrated a birthday on Saturday. What all this means is food . . . LOTS of food. In fact, according to my daughter's digital scale, I gained 2.4 pounds on Thanksgiving alone!

Now, I know that isn't even possible. In order to gain that much weight, I would have to consume over 8,000 more calories than I burned. Even if I did nothing but lie on the couch and eat ALL DAY, I don't think I could possibly gain 2+ pounds overnight. But it got me to thinking about how easy it is to gain weight after 50 and especially over the holidays.

Holiday Weight Maintenance Secret

So how can you avoid holiday weight gain? Portion control. That’s right, control your portions. I know, I know . . . easy to say but hard to do. But yes, it really is that simple.
  • Eat what you want but in moderation.
  • Enjoy each meal but leave room for desserts.
  • Use a small plate.
  • Take small helpings of your favorite foods.
  • Decline foods that you don’t absolutely love.
  • Forego second helpings.
  • Limit your indulgence to just one day, not every day between Thanksgiving and January 1st.

Ok, so who am I to give advice? After all, I’m the one with the 2.4 pound overnight weight increase, right? Well, yes and no. The scale did show the increase but there are many things that can cause overnight weight gain, such as excess sodium, different clothes, etc. - pigging out on just one day won’t really do it. Pigging out day after day, however, is another story . . .

1 comment:

  1. Yes! with following healthy diet food we can avoid holiday weight gain.

    ReplyDelete