Eat, drink and be merry this holiday season…and pay for it later?

December is a very festive time of year. For most of us, it’s an entire month filled with holiday parties, family gatherings and other social events, typically centered around one thing - food. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the holiday season. This is the time of year when tempting holiday treats trump our usual sensible meals, healthy habits and workout regimens. Stress can also play a prominent role during the holidays as many of us get overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of the season and forgo our normal routines. We often justify an entire month of overindulging our sweet tooth and allowing ourselves second (and third!) helpings by vowing to eat healthy and exercise it off in the New Year. What can be the harm in that?

Well, according to research published in the August issue of Nutrition & Metabolism, we could see the ill effects of our short-term holiday indiscretions for years to come. The researchers had 18 subjects increase their calorie intake by 70 percent over a 4-week period of time and limit their physical activity to less than 5,000 steps per day. Does this sound like the all-too-familiar Thanksgiving through New Year's free-for-all to you? Not surprisingly, the subjects gained, on average, 14 pounds during this short-term intervention period. Six-months later, most of them lost weight.  The startling results were discovered, however, at the one-year and 2 ½-year follow-ups. The intervention participants had increased body weight and fat mass compared to their baseline measurements. More telling is the fact that the control group – the participants who didn’t go on the four-week eating binge at the beginning of the study - did not experience any weight gain after 2 ½ years. The researchers have left us wondering whether over-eating in the short-term can have lasting effects on our waistlines for years to come.

Clearly, more research is necessary in this area, but before you go spending the entire month of December throwing sensible eating habits and physical activity to the wind, you might want to think twice!      

Tips to stay healthy during the holiday season:
Don’t give yourself a “pass” for the month of December. It’s important to keep portion sizes in check and to limit foods that are high in added fat, sugar and salt. It’s also important to maintain your regular physical activity routine. If you’ve been meaning to incorporate more physical activity into your daily routine, no need to wait until Jan. 1 to start. Now is as good a time as ever to get moving. Exercise can help alleviate some of the added stress brought on by the holidays and boost your holiday cheer through the exercise-induced endorphins.

The USDA offers a number of healthy recipes and tips on the SNAP-ED Connection website to help get you through this merry season unscathed by traditional holiday fare.

Do you live in the LA area? Join LA County Cooperative Extension on Friday, Dec. 10 to get great tips on how to have a healthy holiday season. The general public is invited to attend and will learn about healthier options to traditional holiday recipes, ways to stay active during the holiday season, and how to make healthy choices during a time when many of our budgets are stretched to the limit.

For more information about this event, please contact Los Angeles County Nutrition, Family & Consumer Sciences Advisor Brenda Roche at bkroche@ucdavis.edu (323-260-3299) or visit our website calendar for more information.