Managing Holiday Weight Gain

With the arrival of the holidays comes a host of different festivities, which provide the opportunity to kick back and relax with loved ones, with provision for usually enormous amounts of assorted meals. Beginning with Thanksgiving, going through Christmas, Hanukkah, and the New Year, having a bunch of festivities packed together exponentially increases the tendency to gain weight from all that “face stuffing,” especially since we tend to cut physical activity to a minimum during the holidays. This occurrence has so efficiently been labeled as “holiday weight”—weight gained from indulging in unhealthy eating habits over the course of the holiday/festive periods.

In an attempt to counteract this, some people adhere to strict dietary regimens, either after to get themselves back into shape, or during the holiday period to stay clear of any extra weight to begin with. While these methods may be effective to an extent, adhering to strict dietary restrictions may, in some cases, be considered inefficient, as not only will individuals be depriving themselves of their favorite holiday foods, but this could also make one grumpy and irritable—which isn’t an ideal state of mind for the holidays. Rather than needlessly depriving yourself of the joy of the season, it’s a lot more effective to familiarize ourselves with what exactly causes holiday weight. This way, we may be able to adjust personal habits and practices to individual preferences, so we can enjoy our favorite dishes without coming out the other side with a bloated waistline.

One of the factors with the most influence on weight is diet. The food we eat plays a huge role in deciding the state of our physical bodies. This is because the body requires calories to perform everyday activities and tasks. “What exactly are these calories?” you may be wondering. Well, calories aren’t any special foods; no, calories are just units used to measure the amount of energy the body requires or uses to perform tasks and activities. It is the unit used to measure how much energy is received from the food we eat.

What is of vital importance is that, while the body accepts these calories from consumed foods, and uses them as energy to fuel the body’s activities, the ratio of how many calories come in to how many are spent is usually what determines fat development and bloated waistlines. This is because calories consumed and not burned by the body are hoarded and stored as fat.

As a result, there are two major and very effective measures for weight regulation; one is you make an effort to burn as many calories as possible by performing various activities that help burn calories fast. It is from this concept that Exercise is born. Two, if you aren’t so keen on exercising or just want to double your efforts for maximum effectiveness, you can control the number of calories consumed daily. This way, even if you do not burn many calories daily, you can still keep from having excess by not consuming so much in the first place. From this concept came Dieting.

According to Cosmopolitan, some popular holiday foods stacked with insanely high amounts of calories include pecan pie (503 calories per 1/8 of a standard pie), sweet potato casserole (about 400 calories per 200-gram serving), eggnog (about 838 calories per quart), snickerdoodle cookies (480 calories in two cookies), and turkey legs (about 334 calories each).