Most holidays include the following: family, food and drinks on repeat.

What’s a common outcome of all that fun? There’s a good chance you’ll step on the scale a few pounds heavier on Monday than you were on Friday.

So how do we combat that?

For starters, I don’t think restricting yourself during holidays, family gatherings, or any other type of celebration is the right move. It’s important to have a diet plan that allows for you to enjoy yourself in those moments, while also working you towards your goals over the long term.

So with a holiday weekend around the corner, I think it’s well within your right to plan to indulge a little bit, especially if you’ve been diligent and sticking to your current diet.

If you haven’t been, that’s OK. Now’s the time to clean things up.

Focus specifically on what you can do now, before the holiday weekend, and what you’ll do in the days and weeks afterward.

Under normal circumstances, a big meal or two over the weekend can cause big fluctuations in your scale weight. It doesn’t mean you stored every single calorie from that meal as fat, and it doesn’t mean you need to jump on a restriction diet to make up for all the “damage” you did.

Even if you did nothing to compensate for overeating during one meal, you’d likely notice your weight will first spike up in the 1-2 days following that meal. And then, as time passes and you get back to your normal diet and routine, your body weight will normalize itself pretty close to the weight you were at prior to that large meal.

A whole slew of factors could be at play in this scenario that causes your weight to spike:

• Sodium
• Water retention
• Food weight
• Subsequent bowel movements (or lack thereof)
• Alcohol
• Stress
• Anxiety
• Hormones

The list goes on and on. And yes, actual calories stored as fat are part of this scenario, too. But if we’re talking one meal, the human body just can’t and won’t store several pounds of fat.

So that’s all great news, right? Binge away!

Well, let’s pump the brakes a bit. This article is based around a game plan for eating over the holidays. Like I said at the start, you should feel comfortable enjoying yourself during celebrations. It’s not an invitation to force feed yourself to the point of sickness.

Let’s be practical here.

Enjoy yourself over the holiday weekend, and if I can recommend any one game plan for you it would be that you should dial in your nutrition in the days and weeks ahead of the holiday. Think about it… If you can get yourself in a slight calorie deficit, or at least manage your weight at maintenance, for 1-2 weeks prior to the holiday, you’re almost guaranteed to have a stress-free experience.

Here’s a breakdown of what you can do:

1. Be diligent in the days leading up to the holiday. Follow your diet plan. Be mindful of what you eat and don’t start indulging 72 hours before the holiday actually gets here. Take time now to plan out your nutrition to account for a holiday that will probably put you in a calorie surplus.
2. Use intermittent fasting and cut out some calories leading up to the day of celebration, and be cognizant of how many calories you’re consuming each day.
3. This one’s important: Enjoy yourself the day of, and focus on really maximizing the time with friends and family.
4. On Monday, get back to being diligent. Maybe add in a little bit of cardio at the beginning of the week. Don’t step on the scale until the middle of the week. Get back after it with your exercise of choice and get back to square one.

It can really be that simple. Just because we want to look a certain way doesn’t mean we have to micromanage every part of our lives — even the holidays. Have a good time this holiday season, and be consistent in the days prior, and the days following.

Over the course of a calendar year, we have a bunch of holidays that entertain us with food, drinks, family and fun. However, they take up so few of the regular old, run-of-the-mill 365 days of the year. Being consistent outside of holidays and special events is where the real impact is made. Enjoy yourself, and then get back on track.

Thanks for reading!

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If you are interested in more information on flexible dieting and how it can be applied to your daily life, or just generally need some help with a dieting strategy, feel free to contact me and we can discuss more.

CGF