Banish Holiday Weight Gain - Five Strategies

by Cindy Locher, CHT


The holidays are upon us once again, and our weight loss concerns descend in a rain of cookies, popcorn balls, candy and well-meaning friends who bake. What strategies can you use to avoid the annual holiday weight gain? The average American gains five to seven pounds during the holidays! And what's worse, research shows that at least part of this gain tends to become permanent.

How can you avoid excess holiday pounds? The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has found that people who get more physical activity during the holidays report less weight gain. So our strategy number one is:

1. Begin or increase your exercise program. If you are already exercising regularly, step it up during the holidays. This can mean ten more minutes added to your cardio workout, or an additional workout during the week, or increasing the intensity level of your existing workout. If you don't have a regular exercise routine, begin one now, rather than waiting (or is that, weighting?) to make a New Year's Resolution. Preventing the pounds from coming on, according to NIH, is much more effective than trying to take them off later.
2. Try cross-training. Add a different type of sport or exercise to your program. This will shock your body to develop more muscle and burn more calories, because you will use muscles in new ways. Cross training will make you perform better at the sport or activity you already enjoy, too.
3. Substitute another activity for food. Don't use food as a reward during the holidays. Try substituting it with spending time with family and friends, or time alone. Do that extra workout. Go shopping (for something other than food), or volunteer your time for a worthy cause. Change your focus.
4. Don't focus holiday get-togethers around food. Food should be on the side, not the centerpiece of a social gathering. Put the food in a different room from where your socializing will take place. Make people (and yourself) walk up the stairs and down the hall to refill their plates and glasses. So much eating during the holidays is unconscious eating, because the food is always right there at our elbows. Make yourself think about that next helping, and give yourself a chance to make a conscious decision.
5. Get some extra help from hypnosis. The holidays are an excellent time to start a hypnotherapy program, which can give you the extra support you need to easily and comfortably say no to that extra helping, or those sweets. Hypnosis will help your powerful subconscious mind support the decisions of your conscious mind, and put YOU in the driver's seat.

Holiday weight-gain is not inevitable! But preventing the spread requires action on your part. Choose one or more of these strategies and take control of this part of your life, for the holidays, and choose hypnosis for weight loss for the rest of your life!