Ever notice how your pants mysteriously shrink during the holiday season? You're not alone! New research reveals that holiday weight gain is a universal phenomenon affecting people around the globe. But before you toss your scale out the window in despair, there's good news: simply stepping on that scale more frequently might be your secret weapon against those stubborn holiday pounds.

The Global Holiday Weight Gain Phenomenon
​Just like your saxophone needs regular tuning to stay in harmony, your body needs regular monitoring during the season of feasting. Research tracking weight patterns across three countries found that whether you're celebrating Thanksgiving in America, Christmas in Germany, or Golden Week in Japan, nearly everyone experiences a weight bump during holiday celebrations.

Think of holidays as your body's "encore performance" – it's taking in more calories than it needs for the standing ovation! The study, which tracked daily weights of over 2,800 people using wireless scales, showed that these weight spikes aren't just in your imagination.

The Three-Month Hangover
Here's the kicker – about half of the weight gained during peak holidays sticks around for three whole months afterward. It's like having holiday houseguests who just won't leave! The rest of that weight might hang around even longer, becoming your permanent backup singer if you're not careful.

Picture this: You gain a pound during Christmas festivities. By March, you've only lost half of it. By the time next Christmas rolls around, you might still be carrying that extra half-pound... before adding another pound on top of it. Repeat this yearly, and you've got yourself a decade-long weight gain composition that nobody asked to hear!

The Weighing Game: Your Best Defense

Here's where things get interesting – and hopeful! The research revealed a fascinating pattern: people who weighed themselves frequently (more than 3.6 times per week) gained less than two-thirds as much holiday weight as their less vigilant counterparts. Even better, these frequent weighers managed to lose their holiday weight gain completely by the end of January.

Meanwhile, the folks who rarely stepped on the scale (less than 1.7 times weekly) never fully shed their holiday pounds during the entire year of the study. Talk about a lasting impression!

The Holiday Weighing ParadoxIronically, the research found that people tend to weigh themselves less frequently during the holidays – precisely when they need that feedback the most! It's like closing your eyes during the scariest part of a movie; not looking doesn't change what's happening.

This holiday weighing avoidance creates the perfect storm: more tempting food, less awareness of how much you're eating, and no scale-based reality checks to keep you in tune with your body's needs.

Practical Tips for Holiday Weight Management
So what's a holiday reveler to do? Here are some simple strategies based on the research:

1. Keep that scale in sight: Make weighing yourself as easy as possible. Put the scale somewhere visible in your bathroom.
2. Establish a rhythm: Like practicing your saxophone, consistency is key. Try to weigh yourself at the same time each day (preferably in the morning after using the bathroom).
3. Don't dodge the scale: Resist the urge to avoid the scale during the holidays. In fact, this is when you might benefit most from the feedback!
4. Focus on the trend, not the number: Day-to-day fluctuations are normal. What matters is the overall direction over time.
5. Act early: If you see the numbers creeping up, make small adjustments quickly rather than waiting until January 1st for a dramatic reset.

The Holiday Harmony

Enjoying holiday foods is part of what makes celebrations special. The goal isn't to avoid all indulgences but to stay aware and responsive.

A quick daily check-in might be all you need to enjoy the holiday season without carrying it with you into spring and beyond.

So this holiday season, embrace the scale shuffle! You might find that staying in tune with your weight helps you enjoy the festivities without paying for them long after the decorations have been packed away.

After all, when it comes to holiday weight management, an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure!

References

Helander, E. E., Wansink, B., & Chieh, A. (2016). Weight gain over the holidays in three countries. New England Journal of Medicine, 375(12), 1200-1202.
Wansink, B. (2007). Mindless eating: Why we eat more than we think. Random House LLC.
Boutelle, K. N., Kirschenbaum, D. S., Baker, R. C., & Mitchell, M. E. (1999). How can obese weight controllers minimize weight gain during the high risk holiday season? By self-monitoring very consistently. Health Psychology, 18(4), 364.

Here's a punchy video about some of the research we had done that year in our Food and Brand Lab.  Some useful things to try if you don't like the idea of a New Year's diet.

Here’s some of what they mentioned:

     1. Use lighter plates
     2. Use smaller plates
     3. Cut your food into pieces
     4. Don’t watch TV when you eat
     5.  No scary movies
     6. Don’t shop when you’re hungry (you don't buy more, you buy worse)
     7. Deprivation always backfires

Some of these might sound pretty basic, but it’s Aner's description of how they work and Quartz's funny illustrations that really make them pop.

Aner flew out to visit me from Israel a while back, and we were talking about how people react after they hear about some of these discoveries.

Some people hear about suggestions like these and say to themselves “That would never happen to me,” so they don’t try to do anything different, and nothing changes in their life.  Other people say to themselves, “Yeah, that makes sense” but they never do it, so, again, nothing changes in their life. 
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No one is going to hear about 7 discoveries and make 7 changes in their life.  It’s too much.  But you can make 1 or 2 of them.  After they become habits, you can always come back to the table for another course.

I’ve heard this every August, and I’ve said this almost every August.

Whenever I’ve asked professors and PhD students what percent of their planned work they got accomplished over the summer, no one has ever said “All of it.”  Almost everyone says something between 25 to 35%.  Everyone from the biggest, most productive super stars with the biggest lab to the most motivated, fire-in-their-belly PhD student with the biggest anxiety.  

We are horrible estimators of how productive we’ll be over the summer.   I was in academia for 35 years (including MA and PhD years), yet every single summer I never finished more than 30% of what I planned.  How can we be so poorly calibrated?  We never learn.  We never readjust our estimate for the next summer.   Next summer we’ll still only finish 25-35% of what we planned to do.

There are only two weeks in the year when I’m predictably down or blue.  It’s the last two weeks of August.  It’s not the heat (I mostly stay indoors).  It’s not the impending classes (I love teaching).  It’s not all the beginning of semester meetings (I loved my colleagues and loved passing notes to them under the table).  Ten years ago, I realized that I felt down the end of every August because I had to admit “school’s starting and I haven’t gotten jack done all summer.” The beginning of school is the psychological end of the Academic Fiscal Year.  

One solution to our August blues lies in understanding what times of the year we do like most, and to see if we can rechannel those warm-glowy feelings to August.

If you had to guess the #1 favorite time of the year for most academics, you’d probably guess “The end of school.”  The #2 favorite time of the year you might guess would be the “Winter or Christmas break.”  What would you guess the third favorite time of the year is?

Surprisingly, I’ve heard people say it’s when they turn in their Annual Activity Report.  That’s the summary they turn into their hard-to-please Department Chair that summarizes what they’ve accomplished in the prior 12 months:  What they published, who they advised, what new things they’ve started, what new teaching materials they’ve created, and so forth.  

Snore.  How could writing an Annual Activity Report be a highlight?

Because it shows in black-and-white that we didn’t sleep-walk through the year.  It reminds us that the publication that we now take for granted was one that we were still biting our nails about last year at this time. It reminds us of our advises who were stressing over their undergraduate thesis a year ago and who have now happily graduated.  It reminds us of the cool ideas we've into hopeful projects -- ideas we hadn't even thought of a year ago..  Going back in a 12-month-ago time machine shows us what we did accomplish.  It turns our focus toward what we did – and away from what we didn’t.

Once we cross things off of our academic To-do list, we tend to forget we accomplished them.  August might be a good time to do a mid-year AAR.  It might not turn our August blues into a happy face yellow, but might at least turn it to green.  A green light for a great new school year. 

Have a tremendous school year.