You CAN Avoid Weight Gain Over the Holidays–and Here’s How To Do It

You Can Avoid Weight Gain Over the HolidaysThey lurk like prowling cats at night, sneaking around corners everywhere you go between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, daring you to resist them by flaunting their sensual smells and tantalizing tastes, begging you to take just one bite…

They…are calories!

Instead of dreading the holidays this year because you know you’ll be torturing yourself with horrific diets and boring hours at the gym after January 1, avoid weight gain by using these tips over the holidays and know that you’ll be able to breathe a sigh of relief when you step on the scale January 2 and see the same number you saw November 24.

Step on the Scale Twice a Day

Before you reach for that first cup of coffee in the morning, get on the scale and check your weight. Then, at bedtime, get on that trusty scale again and see if the needle has crept up. If it has, take charge by eliminating several hundred calories from your next day’s menu. If you weigh yourself only once a week during the holidays, that half-pound you could have detected early and undone in the middle of the week may turn into a more stubborn pound or two that takes more willpower to remove from your hips.

Get Up and Get Moving

Just for fun (well, sort of), jump out of bed and start exercising in the morning instead of smacking the snooze button and returning to that dream of living in Tahiti on a rich relative’s inheritance. Not only will early-morning exercise get your metabolism humming along but, according to research, it can even improve your mood during the day (no matter how irritating the office irritant is behaving).

Scientists examining brain scans found that women who exercised in the morning were more physically active all day and actually responded “less to pictures of comfort food compared to women who did not exercise in the morning.”

Bank your Money Not Your Calories

Depriving yourself of energy all day just so you can eat a piece of Grandma’s homemade German chocolate cake with cherries on top means you’ll probably end up eating two pieces instead of just one. Starving yourself turns your body into a hyperdriven machine programmed to eat anything that isn’t nailed down. So make sure you eat at least two square meals (vegetables, lean meat, fruit, please) before heading over to Grandma’s house.

Enjoy the holidays and all that delicious food–just don’t let the food enjoy you!

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