The holiday season is a time filled with fellowship and food. For those who step on a scale to assess the damage of the latter, the holiday season typically ends with a pang of regret. It’s long been said that the average person gains 7-10 pounds during the holidays. The good news is, this is wrong. In fact, studies show the average person only gains 1-2 pounds. The bad news is however, these pounds most often never leave. That’s right New Year’s resolutioners- The weight you gain during the holidays will most likely be around in March.
There are several different ways to attack holiday nutrition and all are dependent on your individual goals. With a plan of action and a little effort you can enjoy the food that the holiday’s bring without the unwanted pounds. Below are a few strategies that I have found useful in my own life and in the life of my clients.
1. Create a Deficit
If you’re an avid food tracker, you may find it best to create a caloric deficit for the week on the days you wont be having a holiday meal. For instance, with Thanksgiving on Thursday, you could deliberately reduce your calories by 500 per day on every other day of the week, leaving a large deficit that you likely won’t break with a large meal or two on Thanksgiving Day.
2. Track Loosely
If you enjoy tracking and prefer to keep your daily schedule as normal, you could do your best to track your food as you regularly would and eat what you want. The problem is, MyFitnessPal probably doesn’t have your grandmother’s green bean casserole recipe in it’s food bank and you’re not going to be able to track accurately. That’s ok though. Even loosely tracking your food may make you more conscious of the decisions you make and cause you to eat better than you would if you didn’t.
3. Intermittent Fasting
This is my personal favorite approach. My family typically has a Thanksgiving Day dinner and my mom makes the best sweet potato casserole in the world. I refuse to refuse it. In preparation for dinner, I will fast the entire day leading up to the family meal and eat what I want when I get there. I’ve noticed when I do this it has zero negative impact on my weight and if I were to guess, I still barely break my caloric goals for the day. If you’re like a lot of families you may have a Thanksgiving Day lunch and dinner. If it were me, I would skip meals until lunch and when I get there focus primarily on proteins and vegetables. Turkey, a couple deviled eggs, and some greens sounds extremely doable. Then, I would avoid eating again until dinner at which point I would eat whatever I chose.
4. YOLO
Maybe you’re in a bulk phase and calories can only help your case. Maybe your own experience with food is that if you go off the rails every now and then, you really don’t notice any type of negative impact. Whatever the case may be, it’s important to realize that you don’t absolutely have to be rigid or even careful during holiday eating. If this is your approach, make sure that if you do happen to see the scale go up, it doesn’t have any sort of harmful mental impact.
No matter what method you choose, there are several ways you can take advantage of the holidays to improve your health and fitness and lessen any damage done if you choose (or change to) the YOLO approach.
Sleep More
If you’re like most people, you’re probably off work at least one day during the holidays and this is the perfect time to take advantage of how sleep can improve your health. Even one night of extra sleep means improved appetite, better insulin sensitivity, and more energy.
Move More
Use your extra free time to get active. Get an extra workout in, go on a family hike, or get outside and play with the dogs or kids. Movement means calories burned. If you spend your day off moving a lot less than you normally do, the impact of your meals will be larger.
Chill Out
When we stress our body releases the hormone cortisol which can lead to increased appetite and weight gain. Use this time with your family to separate yourself from daily stress and enjoy yourself.
With the right plan, you don’t have to miss out on the fun this holiday season just because you’re watching your weight. Plan your course of action beforehand and stick with it. If you happen to mess up it’s no big deal. Food is not the enemy. It’s only food.
Happy Holidays!
-Melee
