Don’t wait to start your New Year’s resolutions: The average American gains about 5 pounds over the holiday period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.
Back in September, a study from Cornell University’s Food & Brand Lab used wireless scales from participants in the United States, Germany, and Japan to measure weight patterns related to holiday weight gain. Medical Daily previously reported that the weight you gain over the three-month holiday season could potentially take over five months to lose.
Want to avoid falling into this weight gain cycle while still enjoying the holiday season? We’ve listed some tricks to eat healthy and avoid gaining weight for the rest of 2016.
- Eat only until you’re satisfied; don’t stuff yourself.
- If you overeat at one meal, then go light on the next. According to Sutter Health CPMC, it takes 500 calories per day above your typical food consumption to gain one pound.
- Try bringing your own healthy dish to a holiday gathering.
- Make sure to plan some time to exercise. Try being both festive and active by sledding, ice skating, or shoveling snow.
- Use smaller plates. Another study from Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab found that people scooped themselves 31 percent more ice cream when using oversized bowls compared with smaller dishes.Additionally, they served themselves 57 percent more when using a bigger scoop.
- Try to cut back on drinking, A 2005 study found men consume an additional 433 calories a day from alcoholic drinks, while women add an extra 300.
Think you’ll put on some holiday weight in 2016? Chances are you won’t be able to lose it until Easter 2017. If that doesn’t motivate you to start reaching your weight loss goal now, nothing will.
Source: Medical Daily
