By Sunny Layne
With the aroma of pumpkin pie wafting in the air, grandma”s cinnamon rolls on the table and a gallon of eggnog making its annual appearance, the holidays pose a take-no-prisoners attack on your tummy.
“I know I”m going to gain weight during the holidays,” said BYU Comparative Literature major Vanessa Fluckiger. “I started running last week because you know it”s going to happen.”
Everyone knows during the holidays most Americans pack a “little more to love” on their bellies.
But a news alert from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases provides reason to pause before pouring down the pie.
Surprisingly, according to the study, Americans gain less weight over the holidays than traditionally thought — about one and a half pounds rather than five or 10. The bad news is, once that little pudge comes to visit, it decides to stay — for good.
As head of the study, Dr. Jack Yanovski recorded the weights of 195 people. He weighed them at six-week intervals before, during and after the holiday season. He found that weight gained over the holidays may be an ever-increasing contributor to general obesity.
“Although an average holiday weight gain of less than a pound may seem unimportant, that weight was not lost over the remainder of the year,” he said in the NIH news alert. “When 165 of the study volunteers were weighed a year after the study began, they had not lost the extra weight gained during the holidays, and ended the year a pound and a half heavier than they were the year before.”
Suddenly those truffles look troubling.
But for those of us who still want to “live it up” during the holidays without our thighs showing it the rest of the year, here are some helpful hints inspired from familyfun.com and about.com:
1. Strategize – Remember the scout”s motto: “Be Prepared.” And so it goes for holiday eating. Take time to calmly think how you want to look and feel after the holidays. How will what you eat during the holidays affect your outcome?
Decide how will you handle situations when someone offers you food you don”t want to eat. Decide what do you want to eat instead. If you are serious about watching what you eat, write your goals down – it always makes them more concrete.
Another tactic: dress for your weight-watching success. Wearing a fitting pair of pants may discourage the desire for seconds, knowing you will have to unfasten your belt to fit-in that extra piece of pie.
2. Stay active – According to supermarket guru Phil Lempert in about.com, one of the major causes of weight gain during the holidays is lack of activity. Most movement consists of navigating through crowded malls and parking lots. After a day of shopping-till-you-drop, it may be hard to want to jump on the treadmill.
Lempert advises shoppers to walk a few extra laps around the mall. Seasonal activities such as caroling also provide increased activity.
3. Don”t starve yourself – some people go hungry through the day just so they can “afford” to eat rich foods at evening parties. This is asking for bloatage.
Extreme hunger may cause you to cast moderation to the wind, and find you regretting your carefree escapade the next trip to the scale.
Eating throughout the day and even something small – such as a piece of fruit – before the big shindig can ward-off the urge to binge.
4. Take advantage of veggies – Along with bundt cake and poppy seed bread, holiday tables usually offer vegetables and fruits, too. While giving you needed vitamins and minerals, their fiber can help slow-down your appetite.
Also, eating refreshments from Mother Nature instead of Betty Crocker will greatly reduce your sucrose intake – helping your blood sugar, and, in turn, your mood, be more stable.
5. Be a picky eater – Think quality, not quantity. According to familyfun.com, there are two kinds of sweets: the kind that are worth all the calories and the kind that are mostly there for decoration.
“I don”t think it”s healthy for someone my age to abstain from every sweet over the holidays,” said Fluckiger. She said people should feel free to indulge in the things they really like – just don”t go overboard.
So, if you look forward to Aunt Betty”s Yule Log each year, go ahead – have some. But try not to waste your good taste on plundering the platter of fruitcake.
6. Don”t set up a diet over the holidays – According to registered dietician Rick Hall on about.com, statistically, 95 percent of dieters fail to keep their weight loss off.
The fat-digesting enzymes in the body, called lipoprotein lipases (LPL), tend to increase in activity during dieting.
In the end, the body – assuming it needs more fat digesting enzymes – encourages fat storage. When the diet is over, the body speedily stores adipose tissue. Hello fat.
Hall says the most successful strategy is to avoid dieting altogether and make realistic lifestyle changes that you can maintain for life.
7. Take some personal time – holidays are famous for busyness. Too much chaos can cause hankerings for overeating. Having some quiet time alone can help quell stress and get your consciousness off holiday yummies.
Holidays are also a great time to learn something new – yoga, meditation, or trying a different exercise program than you are used to.
8. Eat slow – it takes 20 minutes for your brain to catch up to your stomach, according to health columnist Jennifer R. Scott in an article on about.com.
“The biggest thing to preventing weight gain is to not overeat,” said BYU Health Center dietician Stacey Prince. “When you get to a meal, enjoy all there is but don”t eat fast and stuff yourself.”
You will eat less if you slow down and enjoy your food more.
9. Substitute – you really can have it all. With a few simple changes, your dishes can taste just as good without all the fat.
Here are some fat-swapping ideas from columnist Scott:
3 Tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder to replace 1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate in desserts.
Crushed graham crackers are less fattening than traditional piecrusts.
Replace 1 egg with 2 egg whites or one-fourth cup egg substitute.
Replace half the oil in dessert recipes with an equal amount of unsweetened applesauce.
Reduced or nonfat frozen yogurt instead of ice cream on pies.
10. Enjoy your family -emphasizing the spiritual and social aspects of the holidays – rather than the edible ones -can help take a load off everyone”s shoulders. Chances are, your memories will be much sweeter, too.
