Fall is among us, and for many a people that means weight gain in unavoidable. After gorging on your kids’ left-over Halloween candy, colder weather often means staying inside more often and boredom can lead to consuming the refrigerator contents more often.
Thanksgiving dinners, holiday parties, alcohol, Hanukkah, Christmas, and the inevitable New Year’s Eve parties all are excuses to consume copious amounts of food and drink. Studies conflict, but the amount of weight gained during the holidays is anywhere between 3-7 pounds. There are ways to avoid this seemingly inevitable gain of fat. First of all, exercise and activity in general should increase during the holidays. There are several ways to increase activity enough to off-set the extra calories consumed. One way is to take the stairs if you have a choice, and another one of my favorite things to do is to park as far away as possible when going to the store, work, shopping etc. You could easily burn several hundred if not thousands of calories in a three-month span by simply parking at the furthest parking spot consistently during this period of time. Another way to monitor how many calories or your activity is to get a smart watch. Fitbit, apple watch, and a host of other devices are affordable and a great way to combat the inevitable holiday fat gain.
Another great way to decrease weight on the holidays is to set goals when eating and plan accordingly. Hence, you do not “have to” eat the entire plate of cheese at a holiday party. A good way to combat the urge to overeat is to eat SLOW, and drink water in between eating anything. It takes about 10 minutes for your brain to signal that you’re in fact full. So, eat a little, take a break, eat a little more, then drink water, and then if your still hungry eat a little more. The key here is to eat small portions. You’d be surprised how much you won’t consume by using this tactic. So, plan ahead folks, take this advice and when New Year’s rolls around you’ll be ahead of the game for setting your new years resolutions.