For the 10,000th Time, Control Your Urges - By Charlie

I suspect I might be about the 10,000 person writing about how to stay fit over the winter holidays (perhaps there’s some sort of Pullitzer-type prize related to that?). Nevertheless, these sorts of articles appear year after year for good reason: these days, our attention spans have shortened while our mental retentive capabilities are a fraction of what they once were. Don’t believe me? Two words: Michael. Vick.


So here it is, the 10,000th article out there full of advice and tips on how to stay fit & healthy during these the most unhealthy weeks of the year.

Was it Georges Santayana, or Dick Van Patten, who said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it? (The interesting point of this quotation is that he was really making a statement about knowledge acquisition—we need to learn things via repetition—not an exhortation the importance of history; but I digress.) The easiest way to stay fit, is, of course, to not repeat the mistakes of the past, while repeatedly reminding ourselves not to make the mistakes of the past. Therefore, the first step to a healthier holiday is to analyze where you went wrong. Then, have a dedicated plan to stick to in order to avoid those same failings. Here’s a hint: The problem was probably either (or both) that you ate too much, particularly junk food, and that you exercised too little.

But ay, the rub is that the snacks are just too tempting, and the exercising too hard to find time and motivation to do. What is a reveler to do? For starters, if at all possible, have a hand in the holiday grocery shopping. It’s hard to eat crappy food if there’s none around, and it’s a lot easier to show restraint in the grocery aisle (on a full stomach, always!) than in front of this:

Bad food purchases also tend to be ones made on impulse. So when you go to the grocery store, bring cash only. When it comes to the difference between bringing home the toilet paper or the white-chocolate-covered peppermint Oreo’s, the craving for pepperminty goodness packs less of a punch.


Also, when it comes to eating, few things slow you down like carefully tracking just how many calories you consume. A simple mental tally works well, though the peril of snacking just is that you lose track rather easily while snacking. I recommend this (free!) app for android and this one for iPhones (which Lance probably uses in between tweets!). Know that your daily caloric expenditure is probably lower than you think (and wish). During the holidays, when you’re traveling in cars, sitting around the family room or dinner table reminiscing, and watching TV specials, your metabolism is slowing down. Follow these guidelines to estimate what you burn in one day around the holidays, assuming little to no exercise.

1.25 x

 Men: 66+1.3x(6.25 x Weight in pounds) + (2 x Height in inches) – (6.76 x Age in years)

 Women: 655+ (4.35 x W) + (0.73 x H) – (4.68 x A)

Whatever the product, eat that number of calories in a day, and then call it quits to avoid weight gain. Try to have accurate estimates of the calories in each of the snacks—and remember you can eat a lot more pieces of broccoli than you can slices of cheese.

One final tip regarding food consumption—if you go out, volunteer to DD. Designated drivers are wonderful on so many levels, but for purposes apropos this article, it prevents you from consuming one of the most common sources of excess calories around the holidays, alcohol. Alcohol is metabolized just like fat, and the “lightest” form of alcohol, pure grain alcohol, still contains 7 calories per oz. A 1-oz shot of most spirits contains 60-70 calories, and a beer or glass of wine typically have around 150 calories. 4 of those quite literally is a meal’s worth of calories. (More on calories in booze.)

In spite of all of this, we’re probably going to eat more than we should this holiday. Hell is paved with good intentions. Exercise can be a form of self-flagellation, a form of very painful penance. But it’s a lot easier to keep the pounds off preemptively than to try to eliminate them post-facto. It’s sort of like, rather than spilling oil all over the gulf then offering a really heartfelt apology, how about just not crapping all over the livelihoods of thousands to begin with? So try to keep your exercise routine.

One way to do this is to find a partner—someone to meet you at the gym, pool, or coffee shop to begin your bike ride extra early each morning, before you travel, or before the family shows up. When the alarm goes off and you feel like sleeping in, you’ll tell yourself, “no, my friend is waiting for me. I’ll let them down if I bail.” Also, tell others what workout you’re going to do—even brag about it publicly to your friends and family. Then have them ask you whether you did it equally publicly. At that point, if you don’t exercise, you’ll either have to lie to those you love the most, or catch tons of flak from those to whom you were so boastful before.

Now, I’ve waited ‘til the end to mention these, because I don’t recommend being too reliant on certain “tricks” I like to use to monitor my weight. But there are a couple workouts that are especially well-suited toward keeping off excess fat this season. The first is to exercise before breakfast. Cyclists have known about this trick for years, and recently the NYT did a write-up about how exercising before breakfast burns a high ratio of fat. The danger of this exercising before breakfast is likely to leave you feeling extraordinarily hungry the rest of the day, causing you to overeat. I like to counter this urge by drinking & eating things that tend to swell and distend the belly. Consuming a LOT of water helps quash hunger. In fact, one sign of dehydration is an inability to feel sated despite eating a lot of food. Carbonated water like Perrier (unsweetened) will make you feel especially full, as the carbonation sits in your stomach. Likewise with diet sodas. Finally, coffee or tea—caffeinated beverages—speed up your metabolism and suppress appetite. I’ve found a cup of coffee and a whole grain bagel with some peanut butter—a combination of complex carbs, protein, and good unsaturated fats, to carry me from lunch all the way until a late dinner without resorting to snacks.

Overall, the most important thing is to be mindful about what you do. Have a plan: I will exercise for X minutes; I will only eat Y number of calories. And if you stumble one day, pick yourself up, brush the cookie crumbs from your stomach, and carry forth determined to do better.