Ep. #665: 8 Tips for Avoiding Holiday Weight Gain that Actually Work

Every holiday season, you see the same kinds of articles make the rounds:

“How to avoid holiday weight gain”

“How to keep off the pounds this Thanksgiving”

“20 tips to avoid weight gain during the holidays”

Each article follows the same stock format, sharing stats about how many pounds of weight you gain between Thanksgiving and New Years, and then giving you a long list of hackneyed weight loss tips like “ditch the added sugar,” or “chew your food slowly,” or “drink water before meals.”

It’s not that the stats are wrong or the tips are useless, but at this point, you probably know that eating more calories than you burn is the root cause of weight gain, and the only way to not gain weight is to not eat so much.

Of course, during the Holidays, this is easier said than done.

You’re surrounded by a cornucopia of delicious, calorie-dense food and separated from your normal routine, which makes it remarkably easy to overeat.

So, what should you do about it?

What’s the “hack” for avoiding weight gain over the holidays?

It’s this: accept that you’ll probably gain a little weight, use some simple strategies to limit the damage while still enjoying your meals, and lose the weight after the holidays with proper dieting.

That’s it.

Before we get to these strategies, though, let’s examine the whole idea of holiday weight gain in more detail.

11:08 - Expect to gain some weight and to lose it again quickly.

14:18 - Focus on things other than food.

15:32 - Create a calorie buffer before big meals

22:54 - Eat big meals and limit your snacking.

26:30 - Eat lots of protein throughout the holidays, especially on the feast days.

29:07 - Stay active

33:52 - Bring healthy-ish food to the party

35:26 - If you do gain some fat, follow a meal plan to lose it.

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