Holiday Weight Gain: Fact or Fiction?

Are your pants feeling a wee bit snug right now? Are you wishing you had quit drinking your mother's rum egg nog at just one glass?

Well, join the club. I just went and stood on my scale. I am THREE pounds heavier then I was in October. Which is a surprise because I thought I had gained about 5 pounds.

But, what did I expect? That all the cookies, cheese, potatoes, wine, bread, chocolate, and egg nog was going to just stay off me like my summer diet of watermelon, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, and peaches?

Nope.

Honestly, I can't look a salad in the eye right now. I live in a place where it is 18 degrees Fahrenheit outside and I just want to snuggle up to a side of beef.

What about you? Did you put on a few? In an excellent study in the New England Journal of Medicine called, "A Prospective Study of Holiday Weight Gain" by Yanovski, et. al. (2000), they measured 195 adults to see if they gained weight over the holidays as opposed to any other time of year.

Turns out the participants gained on average 0.8 pounds over the holiday season, but they THOUGHT they had gained four times as much. Have you gotten on your scale today?

Actually, most of the participants gained weight all year round and the ones that did gain the most weight over the holidays were most likely already overweight or obese.

According to this study, it is FACT that you gain weight over the holidays (more so if you are already overweight) and it is FACT that you gain weight all year round.

Which leads me to to my favorite tweet of the holiday season:

Don't worry about what u eat btw Christmas & New Year, worry about what eat btw New Year & Christmas

Thank you, @Its5oclocksmwhr!! Clearly, SHE doesn't need the New England Journal of Medicine.

My suggestion is to stop feeling sorry for yourself (yes, I am taking my own advice) and take responsibility for your diet.

Healthy eating is an all year project and a couple weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years isn't really the problem.

Move on, go back to the gym, and try to still be there in June when it is empty of all the people who showed up in January.

Please share your thoughts about holiday weight gain.

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