Beat Holiday Weight Gain

Just when you‘re finally getting your weight under control, boom! It’s the holidays and food is everywhere and plenty of it. Throw in the stress of the holidays – finding the right present, lack of sleep and your diet plans can go right out the window. But it is possible to keep the holiday food fest under control and not end up depriving yourself. Though it may seem as if the temptation to overeat is all wrapped up in those holidays cookies or that German chocolate cake, just being around more scrumptious food isn’t the whole story. One recent study indicates that, for most of us, the drive to overeat at any time of the year is governed more by emotion and sleep deprivation than environmental cues.
In research published in the journal Obesity, Heather Niemeier, PhD found that for many people, the seed of overeating is actually planted within their emotions. Further, they found that people whose overeating is triggered by emotions tend to have a harder time losing weight and maintaining weight loss. “When it comes to successful weight loss, our research showed that our emotions and our thoughts seem to actually play a bigger role than environmental cues – we eat in response to feelings and for many people, the holidays can drum up a whole treasure chest of feelings, both good and bad”.
In this respect, taking a moment to think about what role holiday foods play in your memory bank might help you overcome the temptation to eat. It is ok to have the emotion, just don’t try to bring back the good times or cover up the bad times with the foods you associate with those feelings.
With the holidays on us and all the rushing around and extra work load, many of us do not get enough sleep during this time and tend to eat to give ourselves more energy. This is the worst thing that you can do. During this time it is a good idea to take an herbal sleep supplement so that you will not end up with sleep deprivation.
This is part of an email newsletter that I sent out last year at this time. If you want to hear more of this kind of information - log onto www.healthstrategiestoday.com and opt in. Evelyn Lyerly