The Holiday Season, a Perfect Time to Lose Weight.

The Holiday Season, a Perfect Time to Lose Weight.

Around this time of year, many people worry about gaining weight.  They worry that the extra cookies and candy will increase their waist size.  In order to avoid this, they curtail their enjoyment of holiday treats, thereby also curtailing their enjoyment of the holidays.  But the idea that holiday goodies adds to your weight is nothing more than an urban legend, an old wives tale that have been passed down through the generations.  People who believe this are missing one simple scientific fact:

Christmas calories don’t count.

This is also true for Hanukah calories, Kwanzaa calories and other festive calories.  Here’s how it works:  enjoying festive foods increases your metabolism.  As your metabolism increases, you burn off more calories.  The more festive foods you eat, the faster your metabolism, so your net caloric gain equals zero.  It’s sort of along the same lines as celery having negative calories because it takes more calories to digest celery than is in celery – but who wants to eat celery?

So here is how you can lose weight during the holiday season:  Instead of eating holiday treats as a separate snack, incorporate them into your meal.  If half of your dinner is Christmas Cookies and chocolate Hanukah gelt, then your dinner is only half the calories it normally is.  Do that from Thanksgiving to the Day of the Three Kings (January 6th) and you could lose some serious poundage.

Here are some substitution examples to help you get started:

  • Instead of coffee, drink hot coco with marshmallows.
  • Instead of steamed vegetables, eat buttered popcorn, cheddar popcorn or Carmel popcorn.
  • Instead of a granola bar, eat peppermint bark.
  • Instead of meatballs, eat bonbons.
  • Instead of a salad, eat Christmas Chex Mix.
  • Instead of asparagus, eat candy canes.
  • Instead of meatloaf, eat Turkish Delights.

Soon, you will find many other substitutions to cut your calories in half!

But there is a danger you should be aware of.  Some people have been known to gorge themselves on nothing but holiday treats, thus their caloric intake is zero.  These people waste away to nothing and starve to death – although they do have a holly, jolly Christmas doing it.  Like all other dietary considerations, moderation is the key.

So, enjoy the holiday season, enjoy the holiday treats, and we’ll see you in a slimmer, trimmer, 2021.

 

Dennis Amador Cherry

39th article completed.

First Steampunk novel:  61,445 words.

BTW, Birthday calories don’t count, either.

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