15 Ways To Avoid Gaining Weight Over the Holidays

(Weight Loss Wednesday)

Gaining weight during the holidays is common, especially for those of us who struggle with weight in general.

It’s a time for feasts, parties, family get-togethers, candy, pies, and mindless snacking.

Even during COVID without parties or get-togethers, so many holiday traditions revolve around food that it’s a nightmare for those who have to watch what we eat.

Why we gain weight over the holidays

Does this sound familiar:

While catching up with your family, you graze on hors d’oeuvres laid out on the table, paying no attention to how much you eat. Then sit down for the salad and appetizers.

You have some of this, some of that, and that other thing’s so delicious you can’t pass it up.

Then the main course. Turkey and gravy and stuffing and mashed potatoes and yams and Mom’s signature souffle, then your plate’s overflowing, when you realize you haven’t gotten any of Aunt Merle’s hashbrown casserole, plus six other dishes you haven’t even seen yet, so you start a second plate. 

By the time dinner ends you’re so stuffed it’s painful. That’s when they bring out fifteen different pies for dessert that all look so delicious, and you don’t want to hurt Granny’s feelings by turning down her butter-cake. 

Then everyone chats while Cousin Edna’s homemade truffles sit on the table in easy reach, and you lose track of how many of them you pop into your mouth.

Even if we’ve built habits of sensible eating, everything conspires to make us gain weight over the holidays.

Here are 15 ways to prevent this.

1. Don’t wait until January 1

The worst thing you can do is plan ahead for a New Year’s resolution.

Don’t justify unhealthy eating today with imaginary future healthy eating.

Lifelong weight loss comes from the right habits. You improve habits by making changes now. Not planning to change in the future.

The easiest way to shed holiday weight gain is to not gain it in the first place.

The easiest way to shed holiday weight gain is to not gain it in the first place.

2. Have a plan

Relying on willpower doesn’t work. 

You can’t go into a situation where you’ll be facing temptations and assume you’ll decide to do the right thing.

You need to plan ahead.

Visualize the situation. Plan what you’ll do. Include any complications or hard moments likely to arise.

Planning your choices ahead of time makes those choices the default easy ones. Instead of relying on willpower while under the pressure of making a decision, you simply do what you already decided.

3. Write down your intentions

Write down your plan.

Writing it down makes it real and concrete, so you’re far more likely to stick to it.

You could type it, but I’d suggest handwriting it onto paper.

Pen and paper makes it more visceral.

4. Find an accountability partner

Share your plan with someone, and schedule regular times to tell them how well you’ve stuck to it.

This works even better if your accountability partner is at your holiday gatherings.

A note about this:

I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all advice.

Some are so uncomfortable with being judged that even the idea of an accountability partner stops them from trying to improve at all.

That’s totally fine.

Every individual is different, and has different paths to improvement.

If an accountability partner would do more harm than good, ignore advice telling you to use one.

5. Choose what to eat all at once

It’s extremely important to think before you eat, and decide what and how much food is worth it.

You can’t do this with separate choices. You need to decide for all the food for the meal or day.

A reasonable amount of stuffing by itself is more than a reasonable amount when you’re having twelve side dishes.

Find out what all the different dishes are, so you can decide what and how much of each to take.

Make sure to account for dessert when forming your plan.

6. Skip dishes you’re less excited about

It’s okay to have “special occasion food” on special occasions. 

But don’t add boring normal food in addition to the special occasion food.

You don’t have to eat a dish just because it’s there. Skip the food you’re “meh” on or have all the time.

Especially high-calorie filler food like rolls, bread, potatoes, rice, cheese, crackers, etc.

7. Take small/tiny portions

If there are a lot of different dishes you’re excited about it, take very small portions.

A tiny sliver of pie, or a few bites worth of casserole.

The more dishes you want to try, the smaller your portions should be.

8. Serve yourself

Those of us who struggle with weight often have challenges with People Who Just Don’t Get It.

You may have a relative with a fast metabolism, who eats like a sumo wrestler but looks like a supermodel. Or one who eats like crap and doesn’t care about their health.

Often someone will give you a large serving even if you ask for a tiny one. 

Then you think, “It’s on my plate, so I guess I have to eat it.”

You don’t have to eat all the food on your plate. Especially when you specifically asked it not to be on your plate. But resisting that takes willpower.

It’s better to avoid the situation by serving yourself.

Besides, you know exactly how much you mean by a “small” serving.

9. Use tiny bites to savor things

A huge mouthful of food tastes exactly the same as a tiny nibble. Your taste buds can’t tell the difference.

When you take tiny portions, eat them with tiny bites. Take time to savor while you eat.

You’ll get all the enjoyment from the delicious food without all the calories, and without the pain and regret of overeating.

10. Compliment people while declining their food

You don’t know what’s in dishes other people make. Often, it’s high calorie garbage.

But many are quite proud of their cooking/baking, and may be offended if you decline them.

If your friends or relatives are like this, plan something to say to make them happy while avoiding eating anything you don’t want to.

I’d suggest something like, “I’m trying to watch my weight, and I know your baking is so delicious that I’d end up eating way too much.”

11. Use a smaller plate

Use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate for your entree.

It makes smaller servings look bigger and tricks you into taking less food.

And it physically prevents you from loading up your plate with too much.

12. Draw your plate ahead of time

Draw what you want your plate to look like once you have all the food on it.

You don’t need artistic skill. Just draw a circle, with blobs for each food item.

Check your drawing against the real dishes to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything.

Then you’ll have a handy guide of how much of each dish you want.

13. Wait at least 15 minutes before having seconds or dessert

It takes time for your stomach to recognize you’ve had enough food and send that signal to your brain. 

You may want seconds at first, but later realize you didn’t want that extra food after all.

It’s better to know before you eat than to realize when you have a tummy ache and regret your life choices.

Set a timer on your phone to enforce this.

You should also wait at least fifteen minutes before dessert.

Even if you’ve already planned to have dessert. It’s okay to have less food than you initially decided. Just don’t have more.

14. Don’t sit or stand near food

Holiday gatherings tend to have food laying around all over the plate.

Hors d’oeuvres platters, cheese plates, cookies, chocolates, dips, etc.

When food is in your reach, it’s easy to mindlessly grab some. Then grab more. And more. And keep doing it, with no idea how much you consume.

Try to pick a spot to sit or stand out of reach of any food to stop yourself from doing this.

If you want to have any, make an intentional decision to walk over to it, pick up a plate, put the specific amount of food you want onto your plate, and return to where you were.

This is also true away from holiday gatherings.

Don’t leave a candy bowl on your desk. Instead of putting the cookie platter on your counter to grab one every time you walk by, put it away in your pantry. Keep snacks out of reach when watching TV.

15. Don’t let a slip up make you give up on your plan to avoid gaining weight over the holidays

Nobody’s perfect. No one has infinite willpower. Everyone makes mistakes.

You may end up completely pigging out.

That’s okay. It happens to all of us.

There’s two things you should do afterward.

First, see if you can learn from it. 

If you fail but learn how to do better next time, you haven’t really failed.

Were there triggers you can avoid in the future? Strategies that might have worked better?

If you can’t think of anything to help do better in the future, that’s okay.

The next thing to do is forgive yourself, and do your best moving forward.

There are two things you absolutely should not do.

Don’t engage in self-loathing. Shame doesn’t help. It only makes it worse.

Remember, everyone makes mistakes.

And you absolutely definitely should not say to yourself, “I failed at my attempt to be healthy, so that’s over. I’ll stop trying and go back to eating terribly.”

It’s not over. 

You had one bad day. Health lasts a lifetime. Tomorrow is just as much a part of your life as today.

Do your best to be healthy tomorrow. And the day after. Then keep going.

If you have any more slip-ups, try to learn from them, forgive yourself, and keep doing your best.

Gaining weight over the holidays can be avoided with a bit of planning

It’s a challenge to avoid gaining weight over the holidays, especially for those of us who struggle with weight normally.

But with the right strategies, we can stay on track.

Plan ahead.

Be intentional with what you eat.

Stay away from situations where you’ll eat more than you’ve willfully chosen.

And if you make a mistake, try to learn from it, forgive yourself, and do your best going forward.

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If you found this article helpful, you may enjoy my book The Weight Loss Habit: The No BS, No Gimmick, (Sort of) Easy Way to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever.