How to not gain weight during the Holidays!

December 16, 2011 By: Victor Brick

The best most of us can hope for during the holiday season is a “maintain, don’t gain” scenario. Due to the holiday parties and prevalence of treats during the season we probably will not be able to lose weight or dramatically increase our level of fitness but we can maintain them. Here’s how.

Weigh yourself first thing every morning. You put on weight one pound at a time. By weighing yourself every morning, you will prevent large weight gains from sneaking up on you. If you see your weight increasing you must do something about it of course. This means eating less and exercising more.

In addition to weighing yourself every morning, it is important to track your fat gain as well. Since muscle weighs more than fat for the same amount of volume, it is possible to lose muscle and gain fat and still maintain the same weight. This is especially true if you stop working out and start eating more. The best way to track fat gain is it to monitor your percent body fat. You can do this with skin fold calipers or hydrostatic weighing, both of which are difficult to do, or you can simply measure your waist with a cloth measuring tape. Since most people add fat around the waist first, by monitoring your fat gain by measuring your waist. If you start adding inches around your waist, you are adding fat. And, just like with your weight, to prevent fat gain you will need to eat less and exercise more.

While eating less and exercising more is easier said than done, it is easier to do if you have the motivation of knowing that you are starting to add fat. Remember, it is a lot easier to keep weight off than to lose it once you put it on!

Corny Joke for the day: Where do polar bears vote? Why, at the North Pole, of course!