Control holiday fat gain: stay within striking distance

 When I raced Lasers, an Olympic class one-man dinghy, I used to enjoy being in second or third place and keeping myself within striking distance of the lead.  This strategy often turned out well for me.

As we head into the big feast days of Christmas, perhaps the same strategy would be helpful.  Although some experts would have you abstain from the culinary delights or somehow alter them to become paleo friendly spreads, I just don't think it is a very practical approach.  We live in the real world and I think from time to time we should enjoy the more indulgent pleasures in life.  That said, make sure you stay within striking distance of your ideal weight.

When you stay within striking distance, psychologically you are in a good spot.  You are happy because you had a great time with friends and family while indulging in excellent fare.  You are not too dismayed because you know that you can easily get back to your ideal weight.  Everything is good.

But when you let yourself go too far, things start to get bleak.  Instead of considering your feasting with joy, you are infused with feelings of guilt.  You can't believe your pants are so tight.  You ask yourself why the heck you let yourself go so far.  Some have estimated the average American gains 10 pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year's!  When staring at an extra 10 pounds on the scale, dismay can set in.  But half that and things don't seem too bad.

The actual numbers are irrelevant.  The important thing is that you feel like you are still within striking distance.  Here's what you'll have to do:

• Weigh in: Here's one of the big drawbacks of this plan.  You'll have to weigh yourself every day or so.  Scale weight is not a great indicator of body composition, but for a short-term strategy like this I find it useful.  It's not like you are going to go have your skinfolds taken every day over the holidays...
• Find balance: Just because you feast for part of the day, does not mean you must feast the entire day.  Cycles of feast and fast are natural to us.  Use that to your advantage.  You don't literally need to fast.  You just need to limit calories, and ideally carbohydrates, during windows when you are not partaking in the merriment with others.
• Eat in good company: A good rule to use in creating a feast and fast cycle is to only "feast" in the company of good friends and family.  The rest of the time, deny yourself.  I know we are not big on denying ourselves, but you'll have to if you want to stay within striking distance.  Besides, it is a skill that we should develop anyway.
• Timing is everything: Try saving up your high-intensity training sessions for the hours preceding any big feasting you know you'll be doing.  You can't write yourself a blank cheque with this technique, but you will encourage what is known as "nutrient partitioning," whereby a larger portion of what you consume will go towards repleting resources in your lean tissue instead of going preferentially towards shoring up your stores of fat.

So go ahead, enjoy your feast days to their fullest.  But make sure you stay within striking distance of where you would like to be (or at least where you were before the season of girth started).  That will make it so much easier to get back on the wagon when the feasting is done.  The further you slide, the harder it is to dig out. 

You can try the tricks above.  Or perhaps you have your own that you could share with the rest of us.  If so, leave them in the comments below.  Every little bit helps.

Comments

[Adam Steer]

Monica at Smarter Fitter posted this today. I think it goes really well with this post.

Cheers,
Adam

[Monica]

I love what you said about eating in good company. For me, that's what the holiday season is all about! I definitely don't want feelings of guilt getting mixed up in all the fun.

Thank you for the link!

[Sagan]

These are such good tricks- "staying within striking distance" is definitely my main concern right now!

[Amazing Weight Loss Story]

Hi, thanks for writing that post. I have just come across your site and You have a new subscriber(me). By the way I've been writing about my own weight loss and
fat burning diet
I would appreciate it if you could take a look at my blog and let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Joan

[Adam Steer]

Monica -> Definitely! If you are going to feast, you must enjoy it! Thanks for dropping by. Hope you are enjoying Chicago. It's one of my favorite American cities.

Sagan -> Thanks! Yep, keep the target in sight and we'll be fine... ;-)

Joan -> I checked out your site. Your achievement is outstanding. Make sure you keep that new health and physique in the long-term with a balanced regimen of nutrition and exercise. Quick fat loss is fine (in fact I recommend it in some cases), but it is easy to gain it back if you don't have a good on-going plan in place. Keep it up!