Mitigating Holiday Season Weight Gain

Strategies to help you navigate the high calorie environment of the holidays without deprivation.

By: Dylan Dacosta
7 min read

In this article, I wanted to look at a narrative review of the effect of the holidays on weight gain. 

Study Covered: Effect of the Holiday Season on Weight Gain: A Narrative Review

A narrative review is when researchers take a look at all relevant studies on a given topic, break them down but do not actually meta-analyze the data. So we can’t assess pooled data from this. Rather, we can get a better sense of what seems to be happening within a given body of literature. 

I wanted to look at this paper because with the holidays coming up (or have already started for our American friends), this can be a stressful time for anyone who may be currently trying to lose weight, or simply just trying to maintain their weight. 

In my breakdown about weight loss maintenance, I highlighted the importance of being able to endure your environment when it comes to successful weight loss maintenance. 

The holidays is the quintessential example of a weight gain environment for a lot of us. 

-There is plenty of highly palatable, delicious foods available
-Alcohol tends to be more commonly consumed and in higher amounts 
-If you live in a cold climate, you may understandably not leave your house unless if you have to (less activity potential)
-Lastly, there may even be social pressure to eat more or have another drink from your friends and family during celebration. 

There is truly nothing wrong with any of this. 

It’s just if we add all of these factors into a context where you are trying to just maintain your weight, it can get quite challenging. 

The last reason this time of year can be troubling, is because weight gained during this time of year is not always lost. 

It’s often the case that times such as this contribute to that very slow, year after year weight gain. Gaining 1–2 pounds a year is really nothing to spiral out over. But doing this repeatedly for a decade can result in some substantial weight gain over time. 

This is commonly something I’ve heard from my clients over the years. Weight gain seems to rarely be a rapid occurrence. It’s often due to slow, gradual weight gain that isn’t lost. Holiday seasons and vacations have been shown to be contributors to this. 

So let’s look at some results from this review: 

Note that * denotes statistical significance below. “Significant” generally means that these results are unlikely do to random chance within a sample when it comes to statistics. With that being said, “significant” also does not mean it was a large or impactful effect. Just wanted to clear that up!

I adapted some highlights from this paper below. 

The first breakdown was from studies on adults varying from normal — obese (according to BMI) that were not in any intentional weight management protocols.

As you’ll see, small amounts of weight gain were quite common across all but one study. These changes were all statistically significant as well. 

Next you’ll see a break down of studies that involved overweight/obese individuals (according to BMI) or individuals attempting to manage weight or improve self monitoring.

As you’ll see, interventions alone didn’t consistently curb weight gain during the holidays. Although in some cases, they did. 

The most interesting ones were probably the Boutelle and Squires studies. Boutelle et al. was focusing on consistency and self monitoring which had meaningful differences between groups. This involved more or less communication and support from their therapist combined with more or less self monitoring behaviours. The group who had more communication, support and self monitoring focus lost an average of 1.98lbs of the holiday. While the group with less (but still had weekly sessions with their therapist) actually gained an average of 1.98 lbs over the holidays. 

Squires et al. was based on a group challenge in thier the workplace (at the washington post). This was focused on weight maintenance as opposed to actually losing weight. Just over 60% of the participants reached their goal and the average weight change resulted in a loss of 2.2lbs.

Not that we can extract definitive solutions from these papers, but I think there are some good interpretations and takeaways that I can combine with my general recommendations regarding the holiday season:

1. The holidays are most likely going to be weight gain environment for a lot of us — as per my usual recommendation with this, you should probably not be aiming to lose weight while in an environment like this. Doing so can really just be setting you up for failure. Rather, weight maintenance is going to be a more realistic and practical focus. 

2. Some sort of self monitoring is likely a good idea — if you think back to the diet break study I covered, remember that a diet break is not a break from the diet. Also remember that diet breaks have been shown to potentially help with long term weight loss/maintenance of said weight loss. Which is just a friendly reminder that utilizing a break during the holidays is likely a solid strategy. With that being said, eating at maintenance is not a hall pass. So if this is your goal, enjoy your favourite foods, but you should probably still have some sort of portion control and realistic strategies in place. All while leaving room for the holiday foods you truly enjoy. I know I’ll be having some glasses of egg nog for that reason. 

3. Support is crucial— as we saw this with the weight loss maintenance challenge in the Squires paper. It’s honestly no surprise that the results turned out the way they did. Focusing on weight maintenance is a strategy I’d recommend over weight loss during the holidays, but this study had plenty of group support as well. This even extended to their work cafeterias in the options they provided. So if you struggle with managing your diet and weight over the holidays, asking for support and communicating your goals to your loved ones can be critical. There is probably some online communities to engage with as well regarding this topic. 

4. You don’t need to go into damage control — Sam and I always reaffirm that you should not be reacting to weight spikes/increases with restrictive dieting. As this can start a whole cycle of over restriction and bingeing. Interestingly enough, the Helander study showed that half the weight gained was quickly lost after the holidays. So these spikes can be triggering, but if you do weight yourself, it’s key to not react to the weigh ins. If you go off script and gain more weight than you would have preferred during the holidays, getting back to your original plan before the holidays should help bring you back to or close to baseline. If that doesn’t happen after some time, then I’d suggest actively trying to lose that weight if you feel inclined. I’d recommend this approach over trying to rapidly deprive yourself back to your pre holiday weight. 

All in all, I hope this gave you some considerations heading into the holiday season. 

I think my top suggestion is to just take a break and enjoy the holidays. This is truly no time to try and lose more weight. If you are concerned, focusing on weight maintenance and applying strategies that will help with that (such as keeping up exercise, daily steps or still monitoring your portions) is something I strongly recommend. 

Additional Resource:

Podcast Episode:
Boundaries. Why We Need Them - Especially Around The Holidays

Make sure to check out the podcast episode Coach Sam and I did on this exact topic.

Apple Link
Spotify Link

Happy Holidays, 
Coach Dylan 🍻

References: 

1. Effect of the Holiday Season on Weight Gain: A Narrative Review
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5514330/

2. Forget Weight Loss, Let’s Talk About Weight Loss Maintenance
https://www.five-elements.ca/blog-2/forget-weight-loss-lets-talk-about-weight-loss-maintenance

3. How can obese weight controllers minimize weight gain during high risk holiday season? By self-monitoring consistently
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12867701_How_can_obese_weight_controllers_minimize_weight_gain_during_high_risk_holiday_season_By_self-monitoring_consistently

4. Controlling Holiday Weight Gain: Lessons from the Lean Plate Club
https://www.jneb.org/article/S1499-4046(06)00653-1/fulltext

5. How Diet Breaks Can Help You With Your Fat Loss Goals
https://www.five-elements.ca/blog-2/how-diet-breaks-can-help-you-with-your-fat-loss-goals

6. Intermittent energy restriction improves weight loss efficiency in obese men: the MATADOR study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5803575/

7. Weight Gain over the Holidays in Three Countries
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27653588/