Straighten out the holiday weight gain and loss spiral

Tis the season to blow off weight loss, fa la la la la, la la la la!

It seems that every year at this time, the world gets crazy, with a flood of candy, an avalanche of comfort food, and holiday shopping stress that lasts until New Year’s Day.

Facing this gantlet of dietary disaster, people often just give in. After all, everyone says you will gain weight over the holidays. Most people gain 2 to 7 pounds, so it’s basically inevitable, right? Besides, in January you can hop on a diet to pay for your decadence. This resignation and rationalization cycle creates the conditions that lead to our annual problems.

It’s interesting, though, when you look beyond hearsay and assumptions to the actual data on dietary weight gain over the holiday season. A well-known study published in Nutrition Review showed that people who are already overweight or obese are more likely to gain weight over the holiday season. Those who are not overweight already don’t tend to gain weight.

It gets worse for overweight people, because the weight they gain during the holiday season accounts for half of all the weight they’ll gain during the entire year. So those who are overweight already face a double whammy: They’re more at risk for holiday weight gain, and less likely to work off those pounds the rest of the year.