How Much Do People Gain In Weight Over The Holidays?

No matter how strict your diet is over the holidays, folks from across the globe find it hard to stick to it when the holidays roll around. From Thanksgiving to the feast on Christmas – and sometimes New Year’s day – people can find themselves growing more around the waistline.

During this stretch of holidays, we find ourselves indulging in a lot of carbs and sweets.

But while the growth seems to be inevitable, what really matters year after year is how much is the damage in terms of our weight? Well, according to a 2016 study, the average weight increase for an American is about 0.4 percent over Christmas and 0.2 percent during Thanksgiving.

Remember that’s not pounds, that’s percent. Putting it into actual pounds, an average American will gain roughly a single pound over the course of the holidays.

But while most would think it stems entirely from those two occasions, the weight gain actually comes from the 10 days following Christmas as this study suggested. What this means is that perhaps people’s eating habits are out of whack during that time as people are looking to either lose weight or get healthier and therefore are more conscious about their weight gain on the days leading to New Year.

Others though may not be so concerned about this, after all, one pound gained seems like a small price to pay for indulging in some of your favourite foods around the holidays. Though that same study also points out how problematic that can be.

It argues that while one pound gained during the holidays isn’t much, consistent weight gain from year to year is a problem. A lot of people are obese or have weight problems mainly due to the fact that they are gaining those few pounds over the holidays and don’t work on them for decades.

Hacks To Stay In Shape

Fortunately, people are catching onto this and are creating strategies to mitigate the damage. In the end, staying in shape around that time of year can be really easy so long as you keep a few things in mind.

First off, people feel a natural pull to stay inside and eat more during the winter time. But the thing is that if you remain consistent with your exercising that you do during the fall, spring and summer seasons, your appetite shouldn’t be changing much during winter.

With this in mind, maintaining an exercise routine is going to be crucial.

Another point of advice is to avoid snacking on unhealthy foods. This also applies after the holidays too. Make a point of throwing out leftovers of snacks or unhealthy stuff you wouldn’t eat normally. All of this stuff comes back to the idea of keeping your plate, as well as your body healthy over the holidays. By all means indulge a little bit, but make sure that you have a system in place to help you shed those extra pounds.