The holiday season is right around the corner. This festive season brings eggnog, gingerbread cookies, minty candy canes, and sausage stuffing with way too much gravy, and for many, it also brings weight gain. A new study suggests it doesn’t have to be that way. Preventing holiday weight gain may be as easy as dusting off your scale and weighing yourself every day.
Holiday weight gain is reported to be one to three pounds per year. Although it’s a small amount of weight, the problem is the weight is often not lost after the holiday. Overeating during the holiday season has been identified as a likely contributor to small weight gains that add up over time and can lead to obesity. If you are already overweight or obese, you are susceptible to gaining the most weight over the holidays.
Researchers at the University of Georgia (UGA) conducted a study to find out if daily self-weighing using visual graphical feedback would prevent holiday weight gain. The researchers recruited 111 adults between the ages of 18 and 65 to participate in a 14-week study.
The study took place between Thanksgiving and the day after New Years’ Day. Half the participants—the intervention group, were asked to weigh themselves daily on scales that provided graphical feedback showing weight fluctuations. The other half—the control group, did not receive any instructions.
Participants who weighed themselves daily on scales and received graphical feedback of their weight changes either maintained or lost weight during the holiday season, while participants who did not perform daily self-weighing gained weight.
The study’s authors report that participants in the intervention group were instructed to try to maintain their starting weight throughout the holiday season. However, no additional instructions on how to achieve that goal were provided. These instructions allowed each participant to self-select how they would modify their behavior. For instance, an individual could become more physically active or decide to eat less if a weight increase was noticed.
“Maybe they exercise a little bit more the next day (after seeing a weight increase) or they watch what they are eating more carefully,” study author Jamie Cooper, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Foods and Nutrition at the University of Georgia College of Family and Consumer Sciences, said in a release. “The subjects self-select how they are going to modify their behavior, which can be effective because we know that interventions are not one-size-fits-all.”
Co-author Michelle van Dellen, an associate professor at the University of Georgia Department of Psychology, said in a release, “People are really sensitive to discrepancies or differences between their current selves and their standard or goal. When they see that discrepancy, it tends to lead to behavioral change. Daily self-weighing ends up doing that for people in a really clear way.”
In addition to daily self-weighing, here are a few more strategies to prevent weight gain during the holidays and all year long:
1. Eat roughly the same time each day
2. Choose reduced-fat foods
3. Walk 10,000 steps each day
4. Choose healthy snacks
5. Read food labels
6. Control portions
7. Stand up for 10 minutes out of every hour
8. Choose water or sugar-free beverages
9. Slow down and practice mindful eating
10. Eat at least five servings of fruit and vegetables every day.
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