As I tend to do every year, I wanted to re-run a piece I’ve been running since 2008. It’s a bit late but there are still 3 problem weeks left until New Year’s. I won’t put anything else up, this will give me time to work on the book before having to deal with new content. So without further adieu, I give you the annual running of 10 Tips to Deal with Holiday Weight Gain. Enjoy!
For the body obsessed or even normal dieters, the holiday period from around October through to January can be a true minefield. Between the specific holidays of Halloween (mercifully passed), Thanksgiving and Christmas, along with endless goody baskets and parties, folks run into problems maintaining the habits they try to follow the rest of the year.
A lot of strategies exist to deal with this time, especially among the body obsessed, although I’d consider few of them particularly healthy from a mental or psychological standpoint. One is to become a social pariah. Can’t control your food at parties? Simply skip all of them.
While this might avoid food issues, it’s also a way to make your friends and co-workers think you’re an anti-social asshole. Which is fine, I guess, if you are an anti-social asshole. But it won’t do much for your inter-work relationships.
Another common one is to take the needed meal or food (e.g. turkey, broccoli, plain sweet potato) with you in a Tupperware bowl. I’ve heard of folks doing this at Thanksgiving dinner, usually so that they can sit and look down upon their family members with an air of superiority.
“Oh, I can’t believe you’d eat that, that’s why you’re fat.” Newsflash folks, not only are we talking about a borderline eating disorder at this point (see also: orthorexia/Chris Shugart), that kind of insanity just makes your family uncomfortable. So don’t do it. Better to stay home than be an asshole.
Of course, at the other extreme are the dis-inhibited eaters who just go completely crazy and eat everything in sight, gaining a considerable amount of weight and fat in the three months of holidays. It can happen and I’m not saying that it can’t. Of course, if you’re a bodybuilder or powerlifter, you can just say “I’m bulking” as you shovel down the third piece of cake but I’ll assume that you actually want to keep a lid on weight/fat gains during this time period. Balance please.
How to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain
As always, being a middle of the road kind of guy that I am, I’m going to suggest some strategies that, while not quite as disturbed as taking broccoli with you to Thanksgiving, also doesn’t put you in the trap of gorging on fudge.
Tip 1: Make Better Bad Choices
I forget who I stole this idea from offhand but it’s nothing new. The simple fact, and I’ll come back to this in point 10, is that many people fall into the trap of “If I’m going to eat junk, I might as well jam as much of the worst stuff I can down my food hole.” That’s silly.
Instead, try to make better bad choices. Limit portions (you know that you don’t really NEED three pieces of cake to be satisfied). Pick the lower calorie or lower fat/high-carb stuff at the dessert table. People training hard can handle an influx of carbs acutely better than fat so pick that stuff. Maybe have a little bit of two or three different desserts, just get a taste and move on. You get the idea.
Tip 2: Take a Lowered Fat/Calorie Dessert or Dish to the Party
Whether a work party or holiday dinner, it’s not uncommon for people to bring their own thing to add to the food table. So make something that you’ve de-fatted or lowered in calories, there are zillions of recipes out there. And, please, I’m not talking about black bean ‘cake’ that you think tastes like the real thing.
Find a happy medium between the high-sugar/high-fat stuff and clean eating. Most American desserts have about twice the sugar and butter that they usually need and, who knows, you might even convert someone into realizing that they can eat sweets without it having to be 1000 calories per piece.
Tip 3: Train with a Bit Higher Volume Prior to the Event
One of the best ways to increase the ‘sink’ for incoming calories is to deplete muscle glycogen. When you do that by using a higher volume (more sets, higher reps) of training, not only do you increase fat oxidation, you give incoming carbs somewhere to go for storage instead of being used for energy.
You can simply bump up your volume a bit in the days before a specific event where you know there will be junk. Even a heavy training session on the day of the party can be beneficial here. And, bonus, you’ll be pumped at the party. Great for pulling that hot co-worker so you can both be really uncomfortable the next day at the water cooler.
Train in a nice hypertrophy zone (get about 40 reps per muscle group) and you’ll increase protein synthesis so that incoming calories will support growth. Training also tends to acutely blunt hunger so if you train right before the party, you’ll be less likely to overeat. Well, unless you’re a typically dis-inhibited eater who falls into the trap of “I trained, I deserve 10 pieces of fudge.”
Tip 4: Fill Up on Lean Protein
This one is for the body obsessed and dieters alike. Lean protein has the highest short-term satiating power (this means it keeps you full) and the high-bulk of vegetables helps to fill your stomach which also sends a fullness signal. I’ve yet to be at a holiday party that didn’t have a vegetable plate (limit the high-fat dip) or plate of cold cuts. Load up on that to get some fullness going before you hit the desserts. You won’t be as hungry and, assuming you don’t like eating yourself sick, this alone will do damage control.
Tip 5: Have a High-Protein Snack with Vegetables or Fruit about 30′ Beforehand
If you’re in a situation where Number 4 won’t work or won’t be available, have a small snack before the party or dinner. Some lean protein, veggies and fruit about 30 minutes will give you a feeling of fullness and help to limit overconsumption of ‘junk’ at the party.
Tip 6: Consider Intermittent Fasting on the Day of the Event
Intermittent Fasting (IF’ing) is a recent dietary approach that involves not eating for 14-18 hours per day and then either having an ‘eat period’ of roughly 4-6 hour or even a single meal. There’s some interesting research on it and I’ll discuss it at a later date on the site. But it’s one good way to deal with holiday parties.
Know that you’ve got a 7pm dinner party where there will be lots of yummy food? Try IF’ing (or only have small meals of lean protein and veggies) most of the day. Unless you go completely berserk, you’ll be unlikely to exceed your entirely daily caloric requirement in the one meal. If you can train beforehand, even better.
Tip 7: Consider a Short Mini-Diet in the Days Before the Event
Let’s say you have an event or two coming up on the weekend and you know that there will be lots of food and you may have control issues. Well, consider doing a short, possibly hardcore diet in the days before. My Rapid Fat Loss Handbook would be perfect, 4 days of it can actually reduce body fat by 1-4 pounds (depending on your size) and you can schedule the free meal and/or refeed for your events. Call it pro-active damage control.
Tip 8: I Was Kidding in the Introduction About the Tupperware
Let’s face it, you know that nothing tastes as good as lean feels, you know how good discipline feels, you know that you’re better than all of those weak willed candy and dessert eaters; you read Chris Shugart’s insane ramblings and actually take his bullshit seriously.
You know the truth. You know you’re better than them and 50 years from now when you’re old and decrepit, you’ll know that it was worth it, sticking to your diet 365 days a year and never actually enjoying a moment of life.
So you go ahead and take your Tupperware with chicken breast, broccoli and sweet potato and eat it while everyone else around you actually gets some joy out of life and you feel miserable, alone, deprived and isolated. Know deep down that you’re not only physically superior but also morally superior.
No, really, I’m seriously kidding about this, don’t do it. If you do, I hope someone pins you to the ground and force feeds you fudge until you throw up. Just because you’re an asshole.
Tip 9: Stay Off the Damn Scale
No matter what happens, folks often see the scale spike up after a big party; this is especially true after Thanksgiving. The typical carb-depleted trainee is especially prone to this; the high-carb intake of your typical holiday event along with extra sodium both can jack up scale weight a bit. But you know deep down it’s not really fat. The simple fact is that, unless you go nuts, you can’t eat enough in a single meal to put on appreciable fat. It’s only water and it’ll come right back off in a few days.
But stay off the scale anyhow.
Tip 10. Don’t Be Your Own Worst Enemy
This goes back to what I alluded to in point 1, a lot of people fall into a dreadful trap over the holidays, figuring that if they’ve eaten a little bit of junk food, clearly they’ve blown it and might as well retire to the corner with the entire tray of fudge and eat themselves sick.
I’m going to quote from the foreword of my own A Guide to Flexible Dieting here:
Then the problem hits. Maybe it’s something small, a slight deviation or dalliance. There’s a bag of cookies and you have one or you’re at the mini mart and just can’t resist a little something that’s not on your diet.
Or maybe it’s something a little bit bigger, a party or special event comes up and you know you won’t be able to stick with your diet. Or, at the very extreme, maybe a vacation comes up, a few days out of town or even something longer, a week or two. What do you do?
Now, if you’re in the majority, here’s what happens: You eat the cookie and figure that you’ve blown your diet and might as well eat the entire bag. Clearly you were weak willed and pathetic for having that cookie, the guilt sets in and you might as well just start eating and eating and eating.
Or since the special event is going to blow your diet, you might as well eat as much as you can and give up, right? The diet is obviously blown by that single event so might as well chuck it all in the garbage.
Sound familiar? Yeah I thought it might. The above is amazingly prevalent and exceedingly destructive. Extremely rigid dieters fall into a trap where they let events such as the holidays become a problem because of their own psychology.
They figure that one piece of dessert has ruined all of their hard efforts so they might as well eat ALL the dessert. Which is, of course, nonsense. Say that piece of dessert has a few hundred calories, or say 500 calories. In the context of a weekly plan that is calorie controlled with training, that’s nothing.
Unless the person lets it become something. They figure 500 calories is the end of the world and eat an additional 5000 calories. Instead of just taking it in stride and realizing that it’s not big deal, they make it a big deal with their own reaction.
Simply, don’t do that. Realize that there is only so much damage you can do in the short-term. Apply the other strategies in this article and realize, at the end of the day, what you did for one meal that week simply doesn’t matter if the rest of the week was fine. Not unless you make it.
And that’s that, 10 tips to avoid holiday weight gain. Eat a piece of cake for me.
Similar Posts:
- Rigid vs. Flexible Eaters
- The Problem with Dieting by Percentages
- 9 Ways to Handle Hunger on a Diet
- Meal Frequency and Energy Balance
- The Energy Density of Foods
Agreed with most points (esp # 6 is brilliant), but wtf kinda difference do you expect adding a few depletion sets will do. 5 g carbs burnt per 2 sets, that’s half a breadslice for every 4 sets you do, yaay!!
Point 11
– dont doze off in front of the TV after that big ass dinner, go for a walk. Tell yourself that the walk officially ends the liberal eating and that you’ll be taking it easier on the snacks and foods once you come back. You’ll feel a lot better after the walk and a lot more motivated to not eat yourself into oblivion. I do this every time and it works like a charm – the walk is like a psychological “trigger” for me to gain back some control and discipline for the rest of the evening.
Great article! One thing that’s always helped me is to completely check my guilt at the door on the odd festive occasion. There’s no point completely freaking out about it, as you’ve said it’s a single day in an otherwise perfect dietary regime so get over it – and fast.
One thing that’s always helped me is knowing that blowing your diet for one day can actually be a good thing, it’s a physiological and psychological release – and it’s helps me dive back into my training the next day with a new found passion (and motivation!)
So enjoy!
One word makes it all better:
REFEED!! 🙂
Martin,
I believe the 5g carbs for every 2 sets is when you are dealing with “normal” sets, 6-8 heavy reps or so.
Depletion sets (45-60′ each) will probably be using up a lot more glycogen. Consider 2 depletion workouts (ala UD2) requires upto 1000g carbs (or more depending on bw) to replenish.
Jazz
Is the tupperware thing okay if I eat it in the car instead of at the dinner table? It doesn’t take that long, “hey, I’ll be right back, need to make a phone call.” Seriously, there’s the isolated festive occasion and then there’s the twice-a-week-social-gathering. How many of these events have no redeeming foods to them? I guess to me, if I’m going to splurge, I want to eat a splurge that’s worth the calories when I want to eat it, not on someone else’s schedule and tastes. Sure, I’ll take the sliver of birthday cake to honor someone else, but beyond that – I’m a good cook and I like the food I eat. example: typical office party, mediocre pizza, chips, cake 800 calories if I “just eat it anyway”. As a small woman, this is a lot of calories! Or I could have a large salad with salmon on the side, make a good pizza at home with fresh mozzarella, sundried tomatos, roasted peppers – for fewer calories and more enjoyment. Seriously, why do people care if I don’t eat the party garbage? Why does what food goes in my mouth impact them one way or the other? Is it any less self-righteous of them to tell me that their food tastes good?
Okay, this sounds snobbish and maybe it is. But this is basically what women do when forced into social drinking situations. They nurse the beer or have a “vodka” that’s really water or throw the drink out when no one’s looking… I had an uncle who did this – admittedly seen as weird, but he had open-heart-surgery 25 years ago when the chance of survival was 50%. It was a decade before the rest of the family joined the bandwagon of healthy-eating, and he’d come to parties late or leave early and not eat or take small portions or…. The point is, he survived because he made drastic changes before other people did.
I guess the question to me is, us weird freaks, why bother trying to hide it? Why not accept it? I like vegetables more than the average person, or I’m more worried about heart disease, or I’m OCD or all of the above. If people can’t accept us for who we are, why are we at a party with them?
I was thinking that weight maintenance is about 3 things: my average intake, my average variance up due to stress, and my average variance up due to fun. I don’t think the variance due to stress/fun should be eliminated, but I do think that I should get to decide how much of a splurge I want that to be, as well as what level of “fun” qualifies.
LMAO I’ve actually taken my own food to a restaurant before…
With the holidays once again around the corner, this was a good article to stumble upon. I really liked point #11. It’s hard to control yourself once you feel like you’ve ruined a diet by eating a piece of cake or pie. Personally, I have the tendency to just let myself go crazy after that idea has popped into my head. There were good points in this article and there were a few that I had never even thought of. Great article!
Martin, I also like your point #11! In my family, we tend to just keep eating the rest of the day every time we pass through the kitchen, whether we are hungry or not. I’m definitely going to try the walk thing this year.
Hi Lyle
Interesting conversation between yourself and Martin Berkhan. The 5gm per 2 set thing, does this also have to do with the particular exercise, eg deadlift vs bicep curls? How much would be depleted in 2 sets of the big lifts?
Thanks.
martin
Great post as always! I followed a lot of those tips during Thanksgiving and came through unscathed. What’s your opinion on “calorie banking”? I tried it this as a prep for last month’s Thanksgiving primarily as a way to avoid the above-mentioned guilt that seems to derail my fat loss efforts. I didn’t overeat, I just enjoyed the usual fare with the knowledge that even if I’m not at my usual caloric deficit, I’ve done my work for the week.
Thanks.
My problem is carb addiction and insulin resistance. So far, staying in keto has kept my appetite under control. Otherwise, it would be continual grazing. This year, I’m actually losing weight.
Blah, blah, blah, refeed, protein, fatloss….etc. Thanks for posting on a timely issue and I do care about all that.
But what I really want to know is: how’s ALFIE?
Great tips, especially staying off the scale. I always have clients getting worried they gained weight after a cheat day or cheat meal when they just wait a few days after getting back on their plan, everything is ok. The biggest thing is getting back on plan after the indulging!
Good article worth re-posting.
Just one little point that in my opinion is worth stressing. If you get “there” overly compressed by a lastminute-diet or a lastminute-exercise you will psychologically fall much easier and deeper.
But you did put that “short-mini” and “a bit more” qualifiers that I hope people will get!!! 🙂
Best would be to treat it as a normal meal, where you eat something more. I do not get how that could translate to 3 months of indulging. Well, maybe that’s just not me (or my environment).
@RG: so much truth in your comment.
Wow I’m glad I’m not a neurotic asshole anymore!! This article reminded me of more than a few Christmases past.
I’d say IFing is probably the best way around parties — either eat during the party, or eat before or after. Don’t haul you stupid tupperware to the party and eat in the car or the bathroom. That’s fucking crazy. There is something really wrong with trying to rationalize slipping out of a social gathering to eat chicken breast somewhere private according to your schedule. You’re not going to die or lose muscle if you don’t eat for 12 hours, for REAL.
Great article, Lyle!
I’m with Leigh.. Great article now lets get back to ALFIE!
I think this is great advice which can also be applied all year round.
“… I hope someone pins you to the ground and force feeds you fudge until you throw up. Just because you’re an asshole.” – LMFAO!!!!
The mix of intermittent fasting + training usually does it for me. Plus not stressing.
I can spot a dieter at a holiday gathering in a second. They’re the ones stressing about the food on the table before the food is even on the table, while others are enjoying themselves, the entire point.
Great post. Read it before but it’s still valuable.
What I found most convenient and effective is a good workout in the morning, fasting till the afternoon, have a piece of cake, big dinner and go for a walk after that. Then in the evening it’s not that hard to keep food intake to a minimum. If you stick to it, you can even get below your maintenance for the day.
And if not, what if you DO gain some weight? How much can it possibly be in 2 days? nothing you can’t lose the week after.
The stressing out about all this alone produces more fat storage then the actual calories 😉
I had a terrible week diet-wise (a week-long refeed?) but now I’m back at home and I only gained 2 pounds, which is in the measurement noise as far as I’m concerned. Time to get back to work. I’m glad I didn’t pay attention to those insane ramblings. (Actually, I did and felt guilty all week.) It’s good to find a middle ground here between those ramblings and the worthless advice the media spout.
Oh, no, I had to laugh out loud because I’m that asshole who should be pinned down and stuffed with fudge until I vomit!
Actually, for what it’s worth, for Thanksgiving I just made a couple sides to contribute, so I wasn’t eating it by myself, and I did eat my mother-in-law’s pie. And at my husband’s family dinner party, I did eat freely of meatballs and veggies, but had my own meal when it came time to chowing lasagna. But I did eat dessert, too, so I’m hoping that balanced out.
My husband’s family are all cheese-a-holics, and dairy does not agree with me at all! I hope that buys me some asshole forgiveness!
Well put, Lyle. But holiday weight is not something that I recommended to worry about. This weight won’t be with you for too long. In my experience I could gain a kilo and drop it down the day after. If you eat clean most of the days in a week or month you’ll be fine.
– Alex
I love this article, thanks for updating and re-posting. Number eight is priceless..
Great article, No. 10 made me go read the “Flexible vs. Rigid Dieting” article again because oh boy is that a familiar scenario for me. It seems so strange I can go through weeks upon weeks of perftect dieting, only to suffer a severe bout of lack of control when something unexpected comes up (ahh, my parents pantry…). I’d love to hear more about the topic!
Thanks.
I did a BB contest soon after Christmas and as my trainer said….it is one day, the rest is an excuse! True and False.
It is not always easy but it is do-able to take a ‘considered’ approach to what you shove in your mouth. It is always a choice and as much as you hate that reality – here it is.
Imagine how proud you will be when you DON’T blow out like some of your friends/associates.
So, aim to be proud of your will power an considered eating over the festive season.
– Ev
All good tips, I notice I’ve practised some of the above without even realising it.
I often deliberately eat less and run a couple of miles the day before going out for an evening meal because I enjoy the food more, especially if it’s an all you can eat buffet!
I tend to make sure I eat the meat and greens first and if I leave anything it’ll be the white carbs (potatoes, pasta, rice etc.) so I’ve got room for dessert, if I feel like it.
If I overeat, I notice I eat less the following day which isn’t a conscience effort, it just happens. I may skip breakfast or just have an apple rather than the usual muesli and Allbran or porridge/bran mix. I know you’ve probably heard you shouldn’t skip breakfast but if you shouldn’t eat when you’re not hungry and if you know you’ve overeaten the night before, it should be obvious.
I’m not dieting or bodybuilding, just maintaining my healthy weight and don’t want to go back to how I was before.
Yes! I did all this and can’t believe I’m reading about it here now. These tips certainly work — and then you don’t need to be a weirdo at xmas eve dinner and you can enjoy some celebratory traditions.
I survived the holidays by fasting all day until feasting, working out right before eating (I’m a runner — lots of miles before the feast, done fasted, remember), and since I get to be the cook at family meals, the food would be gluten-free, made from scratch, and not loaded with cheese (but still indulgent and classic). I didn’t go for the cheese plate or eggnog and tried to satisfy myself on the carbs and protein; but, that said, it wasn’t lowfat, by definition, and definitely constituted a mixed meal. Anyway, I ate quite a bit the past couple months but I am the same size 4 I was when I went into the holidays. Its amazing what multiple days of smart, restricted eating will do for one day or one weekend of feasting — its quite a buffer you get.
I do find, however, that I have a slightly soft veneer that wasn’t there before, so I’m doing 4 days of RFL and then “going back to normal” to get closer to the size-two-almost that I can be.
“Don’t Be Your Own Worst Enemy” really good article! Thanks for your sharing!
Great tips for the holidays. Like always, they may not make the world of difference on their own, but throw half a dozen or so together and you can make a difference physically and mentally.