The Science of Indulgence: Can You ‘Fix’ Christmas Overeating?
The holiday season is a time of festivities, family, fun — and, often, feasting. For many, it’s tough to resist the seemingly endless supply of delicious dishes, from mashed potatoes and green bean casserole to Christmas cookies and pecan pie. 🤤
That’s why the winter season is typically also a time of weight gain. Research reports an average weight gain of one pound during the holiday period, accounting for most of the weight gained annually. What’s more, this holiday weight is rarely lost and accumulates from year to year.
When it comes to warding off winter weight gain, many people try to fix the damage after it’s done. But can you really “undo” overeating by slogging on a treadmill the next day?
In this article, we’ll explore the myth of out-exercising holiday feasting and offer 12 science-backed strategies to help you savor the holidays without spoiling your diet.
Can You Really Burn Off Christmas Dinner?
It’s a common misconception that exercise can compensate for a poor diet. While regular physical activity provides numerous health benefits, its effect on weight loss is often exaggerated. Research shows only minimal to modest weight loss from exercise alone.
In reality, you may not burn as many calories through exercise as you might expect. For example, running three miles typically burns about 300 to 400 calories, which is roughly equivalent to one slice of pie at most. To completely burn off an entire Christmas dinner, you would need to spend several hours at the gym.
Additionally, when you engage in regular physical activity, your body compensates by reducing energy expenditure during exercise due to better movement efficiency and throughout the day due to reduced non-exercise physical activity.
Although exercise won’t necessarily prevent holiday weight gain, it does seem to improve cardiometabolic health markers like blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, and cholesterol levels. In addition, resistance training can help you allocate more energy toward building muscle to maintain a healthier body composition despite a bit of indulgence.
Even so, using exercise for the pure purpose of counteracting food intake fosters an unhealthy mindset associated with disordered eating. Instead of viewing exercise as a punishment for overeating, opt for a more balanced approach this holiday season to maintain your weight, health, and overall well-being.
12 Tips to Maintain Balance During the Holidays
1.) Get your goals straight.
Clarify your priorities for the holiday season. Is your goal to indulge and relax, or are you aiming to maintain your current physique, lose fat, or build muscle? Setting a specific health goal makes you more likely to engage in the behaviors needed to achieve it. For most people, entering a maintenance phase during the holidays is more reasonable than grinding through a fat loss phase.
2.) Stay flexible, but embrace moderation.
Strict dietary rules often backfire, leading to binge eating. In fact, simply labeling a food as “bad” or “off-limits” makes it instantly more desirable – so you’re more likely to overindulge when presented with the forbidden food. To make the holidays more enjoyable and reduce the risk of overeating, adopt a flexible approach that allows any food in moderation.
3.) Monitor your weight & diet.
Self-monitoring body weight and food intake is a key strategy for those who lose and keep weight off. Weighing yourself regularly can help you understand the impact of your food choices, enabling better control over your diet. These benefits apply year-long, as studies link daily self-weighing and prioritizing food choices with less weight gain during the holidays. Consider macro tracking or intuitive eating to help you monitor your food choices.
4.) Prioritize protein & total calories.
Simplify macro tracking by focusing on the big rocks: protein and total calories. Prioritizing protein-rich foods, like Christmas turkey or ham, can support your diet goals by enhancing satiety, energy expenditure, and muscle building.
As for carb and fat targets, choose whatever helps you keep calories in check—when calorie intake is equal, both low-fat and low-carb diets work equally well for weight management.
5.) Practice mindful eating.
The array of tasty treats available during the holidays makes overeating easy – as does social pressure from others (especially grandma!). Evidence suggests that eating with friends and family can increase food intake compared to eating alone.
Practice eating mindfully to enjoy festive foods without compromising your health or weight goals. Listen to your body’s appetite signals and pause before you grab food to assess whether you’re eating out of hunger, boredom, habit, or stress. When you do eat, prevent overindulgence by slowly savoring your food, which allows sufficient time for satiety signals to reach the brain.
6.) Save extra calories for festive meals.
Adjust your food intake to create more flexibility at holiday parties and meals. For example, you can eat lightly earlier on Christmas dinner by prioritizing nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods like lean proteins, vegetables, and fruits. That way, you can eat more later without breaking your calorie budget.
You can also implement calorie cycling to increase calorie intake on festive days while reducing calories on other days. However, avoid extremes: starving yourself to save calories for fun foods may encourage binging during high-calorie meals or days.
Alternatively, you might find a brief period at maintenance calories more feasible. This break can range from one or two days, as a “refeed,” to one to two weeks, as a “diet break.” Either option can help support long-term dietary adherence and may even modestly benefit metabolism and lean mass preservation.
7.) Focus on family over food.
Though many holiday events center around meals, don’t make food your primary focus. Approach meals and parties to connect with others, not with eating as much as humanly possible. Aim to incorporate other activities that don’t involve food, like playing board games or driving to see Christmas lights. And bonus point for festive fun that integrates exercise: a 2022 pilot study found Christmas-themed workouts to be an enjoyable, effective way to increase physical activity during the holidays.
8.) Manage holiday stress.
‘Tis the season to be jolly…but for many, the holidays can also be overwhelming. Nearly nine in 10 U.S. adults report feelings of stress during the holidays. Chronic stress stokes appetite and cravings for calorie-dense foods, leading to overeating. This can be particularly problematic for those who eat emotionally, turning to food as a source of comfort or distraction.
Managing stress levels is crucial for preventing such stress-induced overeating, as is practicing mindfulness. Before reaching for those Christmas cookies, take a moment to pause and assess whether you’re truly hungry or just overwhelmed. If it’s the latter, opt for some relaxation time over snacking.
9.) Go easy on the eggnog.
A glass of eggnog might seem innocuous, but overindulging in alcohol can wreak havoc on your health. Those Christmas cocktails aren’t calorie-free: alcohol contains seven calories per gram, and most mixed drinks are loaded with sugar. Alcohol consumption can also increase appetite, decrease fat burning, and inhibit muscle growth. To avoid these adverse effects, stop drinking before you feel “buzzed” and cap yourself at one-to-two drinks two-to-three times per week.
10.) Keep tempting treats out of sight.
Storing cookies and candy on the countertop can be a recipe for overeating. Research finds that we eat more of what’s within our sight and reach. To avert unintentional snacking, consider modifying your environment to limit access to these high-calorie foods. If you can’t toss the cookies, put them in the back of the cupboard or fridge to keep them out of sight, out of mind, and out of your mouth.
11.) Get an accountability buddy.
Your social environment strongly impacts your behavior. Just as social pressure to indulge can derail your diet, having support from others can keep you on track. Wilson and colleagues took advantage of the latter in a workplace intervention to prevent holiday weight gain. Their team-based approach provided social support and accountability, enabling weight loss over the course of the holiday season. Consider buddying up with a friend, family member, or co-worker to reap similar benefits.
12.) Don’t let one festive meal derail your diet.
Overindulging in a single meal – or even an entire day – is unlikely to destroy your diet goals. A systematic review of overfeeding studies suggests you’d have to overeat by 1000 calories daily for at least a week to see a significant change in body weight. It’s when that day unravels into weeks or longer that it becomes an issue.
Engaging in “all-or-nothing” thinking makes you more likely to go off the rails after a minor slip-up and is predictive of weight regain. Instead, remind yourself that one day or meal won’t define your journey. This attitude makes it easier to bounce back from small slip-ups. Along these lines, adopting a growth mindset – in which you perceive traits, like weight, as malleable – can help buffer against weight gain following dieting setbacks.
A Final Word: Savor the Season with Balance
The holiday season is often viewed as a time for indulgence. However, with the right strategies, you can achieve balance instead of overindulging and enjoy festive foods without compromising your goals. Focus on moderation, mindfulness, and a healthy relationship with food this holiday season. Most importantly, cherish the holidays for their true value: the opportunity for connection, joy, and celebration with loved ones.