Gaining Weight Over the Winter and Holidays
I heard reported on TV today that more than half of the average person’s annual weight gain happens in the few weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. We make a resolution to work it all off before summer, but we never really seem to get it all off, do we? And the older we get, the farther away we get from our ideal weight, or waist size.
Why does this happen and what can we do? Follow a program of nutrition and exercises for a flat stomach? Well… yes. But it also helps to understand what’s going on here.
It is likely that our bodies are pre-wired through genetics and our evolution to store fat leading into the winter. Think about it… prehistorically, people would have used extra layers of fat in the winter to protect them against the cold. Then as the winter was ending, food supplies may have been low, that extra fat could have been burned up.
So this practice probably got wired into us thousands of years ago. And still today, we probably eat more as the fall turns to the winter.
There are other factors too… the shorter days of the winter season can trigger a kind of seasonal depression in some people. And people often turn to eating as a way to change their mood. Eating changes your body chemistry, boosting energy levels, and emotions, especially when we eat foods high in sugar and carbs.
And I haven’t even touched on all those holiday gatherings and parties yet!
We also tend to reduce the levels of our physical activity durng the winter. That’s understandable when it is cold outside.
But we have indoor heating, and we’re not living in caveman times anymore! Winter weight gain is easily avoidable, espesically if you follow the system I am recommending here.
Excerpt from: Gaining Weight Over the Winter and Holidays
