{"id":138,"date":"2020-11-27T19:27:16","date_gmt":"2020-11-27T19:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dietharmony.com\/?p=138"},"modified":"2020-11-28T22:19:11","modified_gmt":"2020-11-28T22:19:11","slug":"how-to-minimize-fat-gain-during-thanksgiving-and-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dietharmony.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/27\/how-to-minimize-fat-gain-during-thanksgiving-and-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Minimize Fat Gain During Thanksgiving and Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The winter holiday season is traditionally a time for\ncelebration and reconnection with family, friends, loved ones, and the dreaded\nin-laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also a time for indulgence, with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year occurring in quick succession. In fact, most weight gain during the year is observed during the holiday seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1: Yearly holiday weight gain in three countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t an issue in-and-of-itself, since any added poundage can be lost during other parts of the year. But that doesn\u2019t appear to be the case for most people. Several studies have found that weight gain during the holiday seasons is not lost during the spring and summer months, suggesting that holiday treats may be a key player in the slow, insidious weight gain most adults observe with age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One way to avoid this is to be diligent about your food intake. One study found that people gain an average of 500% more weight per week during the holiday compared to non-holiday weeks, with only the most consistent trackers averaging any weight loss at all. Similar observations have been made with people enrolled in the Diabetes Prevention Program, and successful weight loss maintainers in the National Weight Control Registry report significantly greater attention to weight and eating, greater stimulus control, and greater dietary restraint, both before and during the holidays, than normal weight folk who have never been obese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2: Average weekly weight change based on\nself-monitory consistency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But let\u2019s be honest – most people do not want to track their\nfood intake, especially during a time when emphasis is placed on\nhyper-palatable, calorie-dense dishes of deliciousness and peer-pressure from\ngrandma to have that second slice of pie (because you always look too skinny to\nher).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The holidays\nare a time of enjoyment and indulgence. As such, most people gain significant\nweight from all the feasting. It is from this feasting that most weight gain\nhappens, and unfortunately most of it sticks around permanently.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to minimize fat gain – a review<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A better idea might be to simply focus on eating foods that\nminimize fat gain. I recently published a review article on the role\nthat macronutrients play in determining body composition changes when\novereating. Although looking at macronutrients is a rather reductionist\napproach, it can help us set some guidelines to offset fat gain during the\nholidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First and foremost, though, it needs to emphasized that there is a lot we don\u2019t know. Compared to the seemingly endless stream of weight loss studies being published, a mere 25 studies have evaluated body composition changes during times of overeating, with 13 simply reporting on what happens when sedentary people eat 40-60% more calories per day than normal over weeks to months. Spoiler alert: they gain weight, mostly fat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The remaining studies actually compared the effects of different\noverfeeding conditions. Three studies compared overfeeding on fat to\ncarbohydrate for 2-3 weeks, one study looked at the effects of drinking a pure\nglucose or pure fructose beverage, and another compared overfeeding on\nsaturated fat (palm oil) to polyunsaturated fat (sunflower oil). Overall,\ndifferences between groups for changes in body composition were minor and not\nstatistically significant. The one exception was that overfeeding on saturated\nfat led to significantly greater fat gain than overfeeding on polyunsaturated\nfat (81% vs 50% of total weight gain as fat mass).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seven studies compared overfeeding with different amounts of\nprotein. Two of these were in sedentary adults. One reported that eating 2.4\ng\/kg (grams of protein per kilogram of body weight) resulted in significantly\nless fat gain than eating either 1.2 or 1.7 g\/kg, which had similar effects.\nHowever, the other found fat gain between 0.7, 1.8, and 3.0 g\/kg to be the\nsame, with the difference instead being that fat-free mass was increased only\nin the 1.8 and 3.0 g\/kg groups. The latter study was a controlled feeding\nstudy, which could explain the discrepancy. It is possible that eating more\nprotein leads to greater spontaneous activity that helps offset the excess\ncalories and consequential fat gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other five studies were conducted in athletic populations – people who were regularly engaged in resistance training. All but one of these studies had people increase calories exclusively through increasing protein intake, either as whole food or protein shakes (whatever was more convenient for the participant). And all of these studies reported that overeating on protein, with intakes of 2.4 to 4.4 g\/kg compared to 1.0 to 2.4 g\/kg, either had no effect on fat mass or significantly decreased fat mass, despite increases in fat-free mass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 3: Changes in body weight and composition for\nthe normal protein (NP; 2.3 g\/kg) and high-protein (HP; 3.4 g\/kg) groups. Each\ndot represents the change for a single individual. Changes in body weight, fat\nmass, and body fat percentage are statistically different between groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overeating protein appears to be protective\nagainst fat gain, especially in people who lift weights. However, overfeeding\nresearch is limited and many nuances have not been investigated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to minimize fat gain during the holidays<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So, how can we put these findings into practice during the holidays?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simple:\neat your meat.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanksgiving? Splurge on turkey. Christmas? Devour the roast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since you\u2019re going to splurge on food, focus your overeating on\nprotein-rich foods. Not only does this have the greatest likelihood of\nminimizing fat gain during overeating itself, but protein\u2019s well-known satiating\nproperties might help reduce overeating to begin with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a bonus, if you are looking to manage blood sugar levels, eating protein before starchy carbohydrates has been shown to\u00a0reduce post-meal blood glucose and insulin responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GET YOUR FREE e-BOOK DIET AND WEIGHT LOSS ==>> HERE <<==<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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