Health Options Alan Titchenal  & Joannie Dobbs                    Wednesday, November 28, 2001

Before you eat another cookie, consider this...

It's not surprising that the average American gains 5 to 15 pounds during the November/December holiday season.

Of course, the vast majority of this weight increase is in the form of fat. Actually, it takes a fair amount of extra calories to put on body fat. One pound of adipose tissue is equivalent to about 3,500 calories. To gain a pound of body fat, a person needs to eat about 3,500 more calories than they use.

Consuming an extra 100 calories each day of the 35-day holiday sea­son could result in a gain of 1 pound of body fat. Therefore, it would take about 1,000 extra calo­ries per day to gain 10 pounds of body fat.

Some people prefer to ignore weight gain during the holidays, then diet and exercise it off later. If that's your perspective, then you need to review the following in­formation.

To burn a pound of body fat, a 155-pound person would require this much activity:

>> Walk 42 miles
>> Jog 31 miles
>> Paddle canoe 8-1/2 hours
>> Swim 9 miles
>> Roller blade eight hours
>> Aerobics seven hours
>> Jump rope five hours
>> Golf with cart 20 hours (14 hours carrying clubs)
>> Heavy housework 15 hours
>> Shopping 14-1/2 hours

As you can see, prevention is likely to be more manageable than "treatment." Even the weight lost in the 26-mile Honolulu Marathon would be less than a pound of fat. And remember, blood cholesterol generally goes up with weight gain.

It is surprisingly easy to consume an extra 500 to 1,000 calories per day during the holidays. Most of these extra calories typically come from added foods that are high in fat and carbohydrate. Also, a person can easily add some rather unnoticed yet significant calories in the form of alcoholic beverages.

The amounts of the foods listed below each contain enough calories to add 1 pound of body fat if consumed over the holiday season on top of your usual food intake. As you read the list, mentally spread each item out over the 35 to 40 days of the holiday season. Again, any one can add a pound of body fat.

>>10 cups of eggnog (8-3/4 cups with alcohol)
>> 23 cans of beer or 32 (5-ounce) glasses of wine
>> 32 1-inch cubes of cheese
>> 4-1/4 cups of peanuts or al­monds, or 3-3/4 cups macadamia nuts
>> 35 chocolate chip cookies
>> 23 pieces of fruit cake
>> 31 cups of fruit punch
>> 245 Wheat Thins crackers
>> 145 chocolate Kisses
>> 1,050 plain M&M's (355 pea­nut)
>> 330 potato chips
>>1,850 pretzel sticks

If a person who consumes one chocolate chip cookie, one glass of wine, one cube of cheese and an ex­tra tablespoon of olive oil per day over their normal consumption will gain about 4 pounds of fat by the start of the New Year. Just a cup of eggnog each day would add about 3-1/2 pounds of fat.

One way to help prevent this weight gain is to keep up your usual exercise throughout the holidays. Also, slightly decrease meal size and go easy on pupus, sweets and drinks.

Prevention of weight gain is preferable to putting things off until January. Generally, people who put on weight over the holidays will lose some in the new year, but they usually do not get back down to their pre-holiday weight or their pre-holiday shape. When weight gain is re­peated from year to year, body weight ratchets up a notch at a time.

So this year why not be proactive and prevent having to make those dreaded weight-loss New Year's resolutions?