Overconsumption during the holidays is plentiful, to say the least. The real question is, how much of a big deal is it? Well, consider what can happen when you overeat for a whole week during December. As you know, there are 3500 calories in one pound of fat. So, if you consume the equivalent of 500 calories per day for seven days during your holiday break you will turn into a version of yourself that is one pound heavier. You might be thinking, ‘This is insignificant.’ For many of you, it might be negligible especially if you are physically active during this period. In addition, the amount of calories that your body turns into cushion around your body will vary depending on where your calories come from. Proteins and whole foods result in less net calories requiring storage after entering your system because the body burns a percentage of the calories during the process of breaking them down. This translates into less stored calories than other food sources.

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Let’s look closer as to where your holiday grub can get out of control. Of course, a single large holiday meal is generally packed with more calories than a typical meal. In fact, many holiday dinners can reach upwards of 5000 calories. So if you add this to the tally of calories entering your body during just one week of your holidays, you can count on being at least two pounds heavier (almost 1 kg). As you can see eating excessively over the holidays is an eating error that can weigh on you fast. To make matters worse many tend to carry this overeating patterns into the weeks that follow the holidays as it may be difficult to slam the breaks on over indulgence.

So what can you do? Although there are many ways to curb overeating I will leave you with one for this season. Consider this wet and watery technique, I like to call THE WATER SANDWICH. Before you start eating, drink a full glass of water. Drink another full glass while eating. This will fill your tummy with no-calorie liquid, H2O, and prevent you from overeating. When you are done eating, drink another glass of water to end your meal. I call this The Water Sandwich because you are sandwiching your meal between water drinking sessions.