A few extra calories? What, me worry?

With the end of the six-week, end-of-year holiday phase closing in on us, how much weight have you gained? In the past, one would hear that the average weight gain between Thanksgiving and New Year’s was as much as 10 pounds. TEN POUNDS??!? How does one put on 10 pounds in 6 weeks? At approximately 3,500 calories per pound, you’d have to eat a whole lot more food – or totally dump the exercise program or activity.

Surprisingly I have found I often eat less at holiday feasts – even when I’m cooking. There’s just something about the overload of sweets and meats that doesn’t tickle my taste buds. Knowing I have a workout the next day also helps because who wants to be laden down with too much Roast Beast and Who Hash?

Is it unusual that I even manage to lose a smidgen of weight during the holiday phase? Not really it turns out. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind to ease the worry of unwanted weight gain for those of us who are active:

• Recent studies have shown that the 10-pound figure was a bunch of hooey, some fantasy made up very likely by a Madison Avenue editor. The real scoop is that most people only gain about 1 pound, that sedentary folks may gain up to about 1.5 pounds, and that those who are active may actually lose up to 1.5 pounds! OK, so I’m not nuts. You, my comrades in combustion, do the same thing. So as long as you keep up the activity – and eat smartly – you’ll be fine.

• Another study just in verifies that runners in particular can breathe easy. Published just before the Thanksgiving feeding fest in the American College of Sports Medicine’s peer-reviewed Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise, the study found that runners don’t experience the holiday weight gain that others do. The variations in diet associated with special meals, office parties, and holiday dinners just don’t affect them much.And these weren’t necessarily high-mileage runners. The 107,000 runners in the National Runners Health Studywere grouped by daily miles: less than 1.2, from 1.2 to 2.4, from 2.4 to 3.7, from 3.7 to 5, or more than five miles. (Quick math: 2 miles a day is about 14 miles a week, while 4 miles a day is about 28 miles a week, assuming no days off.)The least active runners tended to gain more weight than more active runners. Researcher Paul T. Thompson at Berkeley’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory concluded that vigorous exercise lessened diet-caused weight gain, “albeit not guaranteeing protection from poor dietary choices.” So, no, you can’t rest on the laurels of miles if you decide to devour the entire pecan pie instead of one piece.

Although the study above looked only at runners, Thompson, who is also conducting a National Walkers Health Study, has said the benefits may also apply to walkers. We think that any vigorous distance activity may stem the stacking of calories.

So keep your body in motion during the holidays, and your mantra too will be, “What, me worry?”

–Therese Iknoian