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How Much Weight Do You Gain On Vacation?
A more succinct version of this article was originally published in Cove Magazine’s September/October Issue- which was a true honour of mine - to actually be published as a Fitness Writer.
Out of office is on. The suitcase is packed. The dog is with the neighbour. Your passport is by the front door. You’re off on your holiday and you cannot wait.
Perfection. You’re saying goodbye to the stress of your day-to-day life and you can taste the Tequila Sunrises by the pool. My goodness, I love a Tequila Sunrise.
Bliss.
Except for one thing…
That nagging thought in the back of your mind that this all-inclusive holiday will undo all your progress in the Gym or in terms of your weight loss journey.
The hotel has a gym – but you don’t want to be that person…
And you have earned the cocktails…like really earned them.
So how will you stay fit on holiday and manage to enjoy yourself?
The answer is really straightforward: You do not have to worry about it.
Just this morning I had a chat with a friend of mine who was adamant she put on 6kgs on her Honeymoon. She didn’t. I know she didn’t…but this highlights a crucial component of the question: How much weight will I gain on Vacation?
In this article, I will outline all the facts to help your anxiety about gaining weight whilst on vacation go away.
Your holiday is to be enjoyed - not be anxious about - so please read this, and enjoy the metaphorical weight of worry lifted from your shoulders.
Before we get into it, I want to thank you for being here and reading my work. I want to thank you so much - that I would love it if you sent me a friend request so we can stay in touch a little more - and I can offer much more help to you than just this Blog Post. I will send you a Calorie Calculator, my book, free workouts and much more (some of which will be appropriate - some of which might not).
So if you like the cut of my jib we can become friends by:
Table of Contents for: How Much Weight Will I Typically Gain On Vacation?
Why Do You Gain Weight On Vacation?
How Much Weight Will I Gain on Vacation?
Should I work out on Vacation?
How To Avoid Weight Gain On Vacation
How Long Does It Take To Lose Vacation Weight Gain?
Why Do You Gain Weight On Vacation?
I just want to clear something up right now - I have used the word “vacation” in the headings for this article, as it will hopefully mean Google will prioritise this web page when you search for it, but from this point forward I cannot, in good faith, keep using the term “Vacation” for what I know to be a “Holiday”.
I mean my American friends no disrespect. But I just can’t get used to calling a holiday; a vacation.
I hope you don’t mind…and that we can still be friends.
Back to holiday weight gain…
This might seem obvious to you, and you are probably thinking that clearly, the answer is because on your holiday you are simply planning to not move from your sun lounger, enjoy all the free Cocktails by the pool, and not do a workout once.
Which you are more than entitled to do.
Essentially, whilst you are on holiday, you are going to move a lot less and eat a lot more.
I want to book a holiday just thinking about it…
However, that is not really the reason you gain weight on holiday.
You are gaining weight on holiday mainly due to water retention - not body fat increases. Your diet is probably containing a few extra Carbs in the form of Ice Cream, Chips, and Sandwiches when you are out and about…
Carbohydrates are like a sponge. Have you ever wondered why your porridge oats soak up the water you put in there? Well the same thing happens when you eat and digest carbs as this study [1] concludes:
“Our findings agree with the long held notion that each gram of glycogen is stored in human muscle with at least 3 g of water. Higher ratios are possible likely due to water storage not bound to glycogen.”
For every gram of carbohydrates you ingest, your body will also absorb 3g of Water. This water obviously affects the scale, as well as might make you feel more bloated or a little heavier.
We commonly associate these feelings with body fat…but it honestly isn’t…and now I will show you why it isn’t body fat, and exactly why you have nothing to worry about from a one to two-week holiday.
How Much Weight Will You Gain on Vacation?
The easy answer is… nowhere as much as you would believe.
The scientific number is 400g.
This study [2] found that the net gain of 61% of participants out of 122 adults with an average age of 32 who gained weight on a holiday between one to three weeks was 300g and the average weight gain was 400g.
Like with all studies that sum up an average we must always still remain clear that there are some people on each end of that spectrum. In this study [2] some people did gain up to 3kgs and some others did lose weight. What we don’t know about these people is their baselines - what weight they were starting at, what their maintenance numbers are, or even the type of holiday they went on.
So let’s look into it some more.
Just because you are on holiday, doesn’t mean your body behaves any different in terms of Calories In and Calories Out. To gain weight you must take on more calories than you burn, and to lose weight you need to be in a Calorie Deficit.
So how many calories do actually add up to weight gain?
According to this study in order to gain one kilogram of body weight, you need to eat an extra 1000kcals a day over your maintenance level. That is 7000 extra calories a week.
That is the same as 12 Big Macs.
The same as 50 cans of Soda.
And then again as previously mentioned, half of that kg is body fat and half is water.
Therefore to gain one kilogram of body fat you need to eat double that amount.
2000 extra kcals a day. Which is a lot.
The study also suggests that if you keep the protein high, then the impact of fat gain is smaller – and the more you eat, you also move more – so that will help keep things in check as well.
I am almost certain you will be indulging on your Holiday - but to the degree of 2000kcals a day, over your maintenance. in order to actually gain 1kg of Body Fat - I think is highly unlikely.
Some other reasons that participants gained weight whilst on holiday are:
Increased Alcohol consumption leads to increased caloric consumption. Before the participants went on holiday they reported only having 8 drinks a week, then during their holiday, this doubled to 16.
Decreased physical activity on returning from holiday which is a sign of you not having the motivation to get back on track when you return.
I just want to pick up on that last point a little more, as the first one makes logical sense, but the second one is a much more psychological issue.
The reasons that many people don’t continue their exercise regimen when they get back from a holiday are probably twofold.
They only started their exercise because of the holiday, not to improve the overall quality of their life, and now that moment in time has been achieved they have no other reason to exercise.
They feel like they have gained a lot more weight than they have, and therefore believe that continuing with the process is even more futile, and then just give up on themselves even more.
If you are considering engaging in an exercise regimen solely because of an extrinsic goal: a holiday, a wedding, a sporting event, a reunion or a birthday party…then before you have even started you are putting a psychological time cap on your ability to continue with your fitness past that event.
Extrinsic goals often lead to a real struggle with motivation in people - so much so I have dedicated a whole other Blog Post to that very topic.
These goals are materialistic.
As Edward Deci says in his book “Why We Do What We Do”:
“…strong aspirations for any of the intrinsic goals — meaningful relationships, personal growth, and community contributions — were positively associated with well-being. People who strongly desired to contribute to their community, for example, had more vitality and higher self-esteem. When people organize their behaviour in terms of intrinsic strivings (relative to extrinsic strivings) they seem more content — they feel better about who they are and display more evidence of psychological health.”
Therefore if you want to not gain weight on holiday, well you don’t actually gain that much weight on holiday as we have established, but have the perception of gaining weight on holiday - don’t try and solely lose weight because of the holiday.
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Should I work out on Vacation?
I deeply and truly feel this GIF.
I suppose someone’s desire to work out on holiday comes from the worry or anxiety around “losing all of their progress”.
Well, I come bearing good news.
Your fear and worry about losing strength and muscle is not needed because you simply won’t lose strength and muscle.
Let’s look at the average length of a holiday: According to the State of the Nation report [4] by Roy Morgan in 2019 focusing on Tourism; the average Australian overseas holiday is 21.6 days. In the US it is 17.7 nights, and in the UK is 8.7 nights.
My goodness, the UK needs to step up their game.
However, across all nations, these time frames are not a long time to abstain from training.
The first thing you need to remember here is that just because you aren’t in the Gym…doesn’t mean you aren’t preserving or continuing to build muscle.
You can build muscle by doing all sorts of activities like walking, hiking, surfing, jet skiing, and horse riding - its not just about being in the Gym.
Remember that pool I mentioned before…?
When I have a new online client who is relatively new to exercise, any movement helps them to get stronger – not just their workouts in the Gym – and we make sure we focus on maximising other forms of movement.
Plus you just don’t lose muscle in 21 days when on holiday.
A study [5] by Manchester Metropolitan University found that if you totally immobilize someone they lose only 5-10% of muscle mass in 10-21 days.
“Totally immobilize” – now I am lazy on holiday, but I am not totally immobile.
Added to that this study [6] in the Journal of Sport Sciences found that over a 16-week period, beginners who completely ceased training only lost 5% muscle and 22% strength.
When you are on holiday, you will have moments of complete rest, but you will also still continue to move – maybe more than when you are pinned to the desk in the office – and that movement will not be detrimental to your physique at all for the time period you are on holiday for an average of 16 nights.
Also in terms of diet – keep the protein up to preserve your muscle mass - this will help witha number of things, but But don’t fret it too much.
Keeping your muscle mass up is important, and if you can get one workout in a week on holiday you will see no noticeable changes either negative or positive as long as you get back on track when you return. The key to sustaining those resutls
How To Avoid Weight Gain On Vacation?
I wanted to put this into this Blog Post, even though we have already established you really do not need to worry about possibly gaining 400g.
But if you are feeling a little anxious about it all the same…then it is always good to have a blueprint of things you can focus on to help balance your feelings and worries.
My top tips to help you avoid weight gain on holiday are:
Eat Big Breakfasts - a recent study [7] published in the Cell Metabolism Journal took 31 overweight subjects and analysed the difference in hunger and appetite control between one group who ate the majority of their daily calories at breakfast, to another group who ate the majority of their daily calories at dinner. Both groups consumed the same number of calories, and the same macronutrients and both groups lost weight - about 4kgs. However, the group that ate the bigger breakfast reported far more satiety throughout the day and far fewer cravings. Plus hotel breakfasts are the best - so why wouldn’t you fill up for the day?
Consider your Nourishment - there is nothing worse than when you are on holiday and it gets to about day 7 or 8 and you realise you have eaten out every day, you are devoid of vegetables and fruits and you just feel awful - internally and externally. Try to make sure you always order some vegetables with your dinner and some fruit with your breakfast. Not because it will save you calories, but it will certainly make you feel better about yourself in general, and that in turn will stop you from psychologically beating yourself up because you feel like crap.
Hydrate - I always tell my clients to drink 3 litres of water a day.
Get back on track when you get back home - a crucial
Keep your steps up - this is fundamental to any weight management plan. Your steps and base level movement are the biggest driver of your metabolism that you have control of. It’s amazing sitting by a pool drinking cocktail - but also going and exploring the world is life-changing. Below is an image of my fiancee climbing the Batu Caves Steps in Malaysia to get to a temple in the mountain…
When you go on foot, you really can experience some astounding things. These caves were truly amazing, however the monkeys on the stairs to the temple in the caves were not.
Monkeys are viscious!
A Final Word…
Your holiday is your time to do what is best for you.
If that means staying on plan with your workouts then do - please be my guest.
In the same way, if you want to continue your diet on holiday - you should.
But equally, if you don’t want to - then you shouldn’t.
Either way a successful path to fitness lies in the enjoyment of the overall process because that is what inspires consistency.
Enjoying the process for many of you will mean enjoying rest time - time away from the regime you have been following because we all need to recharge our batteries.
There is nothing wrong with taking a rest. There is nothing wrong with not worrying or being concerned about your fitness when on holiday because it is YOUR HOLIDAY.
And equally, if you book a hotel that has a Gym, because you enjoy working out that much, then do that too. It is your life, your body, your fitness journey and what you do and how you explore your own journey is entirely up to you.
“There is no right or wrong, just exploration”
Just promise me one thing…
If you are thinking about staying on track on your holiday you don’t need to do it out of fear of gaining weight or losing all of your progress.
Because neither of these things actually occur.
Give yourself that dose of self-love and empathy you deserve.
Stop controlling yourself through fear and worry.
You are worth more than that to yourself and your family at all times and especially when you are on holiday
That is my fiancee, my Mum and Dad, and myself on holiday in Devon the Christmas before I moved to Australia…getting our steps in and taking selfies!
Man, I miss my parents.
As always if you have any questions you only have to ask me.
To be able to do that don’t forget to send me a Friend Request by filling out the form below, and then you can email me your questions.
It would be my pleasure to answer them.
You will also get my book “27 Ways To Faster Fat Loss” sent to you for free.
References:
Fernández-Elías VE, Ortega JF, Nelson RK, Mora-Rodriguez R. Relationship between muscle water and glycogen recovery after prolonged exercise in the heat in humans. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2015 Sep;115(9):1919-26. doi: 10.1007/s00421-015-3175-z. Epub 2015 Apr 25. PMID: 25911631.
Jamie A. Cooper, Theresa Tokar. A prospective study on vacation weight gain in adults. Physiology & Behavior, 2016; 156: 43 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2015.12.028
Beate Ott, Thomas Skurk, llias Lagkouvardos, Sandra Fischer, Janine Büttner, Martina Lichtenegger, Thomas Clavel, Andreas Lechner, Michael Rychlik, Dirk Haller, Hans Hauner, Short-Term Overfeeding with Dairy Cream Does Not Modify Gut Permeability, the Fecal Microbiota, or Glucose Metabolism in Young Healthy Men, The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 148, Issue 1, January 2018, Pages 77–85, https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/nxx020
2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160201220320.htm> [Accessed 14 September 2022].
de Boer MD, Selby A, Atherton P, Smith K, Seynnes OR, Maganaris CN, Maffulli N, Movin T, Narici MV, Rennie MJ. The temporal responses of protein synthesis, gene expression and cell signalling in human quadriceps muscle and patellar tendon to disuse. J Physiol. 2007 Nov 15;585(Pt 1):241-51. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2007.142828. Epub 2007 Sep 27. PMID: 17901116; PMCID: PMC2375459.
Brad Jon Schoenfeld, Jozo Grgic, James Krieger. (2019) How many times per week should a muscle be trained to maximize muscle hypertrophy? A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies examining the effects of resistance training frequency. Journal of Sports Sciences 37:11, pages 1286-1295.
Leonie C. Ruddick-Collins, Peter J. Morgan, Claire L. Fyfe, Joao A.N. Filipe, Graham W. Horgan, Klaas R. Westerterp, Jonathan D. Johnston, Alexandra M. Johnstone,
Timing of daily calorie loading affects appetite and hunger responses without changes in energy metabolism in healthy subjects with obesity,
Cell Metabolism,
2022,
How Much Weight Will I Gain At Christmas?
I am sure you have seen the headlines and the memes all over the internet, in Gyms, and from Personal Trainers trying to win your business this year leading into Christmas that are shaming you into earning your Christmas Dinners calories. That its “the little black dress party season and you want to look good for it don’t you?” or one truly disgusting post that I found when searching “Christmas Fitness”:
Images like this:
Headlines that are just so shockingly Fat Phobic it makes me more passionate about trying to get regulation on speaking this way.
But I should expect nothing less from The Daily Mail.
If they aren’t focussing you on how much weight you will gain at Christmas, they are not so subtly telling you to prepare to have to lose weight after Christmas, or before Christmas, to help prepare you for what is about to happen at Christmas.
I think the less said about Micheal Mosely here the better. But he is traditionally fat phobic and promotes very unsustainable weight loss strategies - buyer beware.
I was also recently sent this photo from a friend in New Zealand. It’s an advert from her old Personal Trainer which he has plastered to the wall…
You can see why he is her old Personal Trainer right?
The internet is littered with messaging like this. Messaging that is trying to make you think you have to earn your Christmas Calories. That you can somehow get ahead of Christmas in terms of your calories, and if you work hard now, the effect of Christmas on your body weight will be diminished.
Or the complete opposite, where they try to create absolute fear into you about what will happen on the other side of Christmas you are literally unable to enjoy a Roast Potato without feeling like you’re doing something wrong.
These are all lies for a number of reasons - but the main one is that you can’t build enough muscle to protect your metabolism in time for Christmas with 6 weeks to go.
Also, if you actively lost weight in the 6 weeks before Christmas, you must expect to regain it during Christmas as you have become smaller, and your caloric maintenance is now less.
The short answer to the very simple question of: “How Much Weight Will I Gain At Christmas?” is simply this:
And that’s coming from Morgan Freeman.
MORGAN FREEMAN PEOPLE.
It’s all good and well this being my position on such things, however, that probably doesn’t help take away the anxiety you might be feeling about this time of year. Therefore I need to tell you and show why this is my position. I will do this using the wonderful tool of Science and my experience as a Coach for nearly 10 years having worked with people all over the world and helping them navigate Christmas guilt-free.
I hope this article succeeds in that, and helps you enjoy Christmas completely guilt-free, and take that huge weight of shame you feel off of your shoulders.
I hope that sounds like exactly what you were looking for when you typed into Google: “How Much Weight Will I Gain At Christmas?” and it’s my absolute pleasure to be able to help you with it.
Thanks for being here.
Before we begin, I want to ask if we can become friends.
As your friend, I’ll email you things. Sometimes they will be educational, sometimes they will be inappropriate, and sometimes I might just want to know how you are; either way…it would be delightful to connect with you.
Just send me a friend request by filling out the form below…
Oh, and I will also send you some free fitness goodies to help start our new friendship off on the best foot possible.
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: HOW MUCH WEIGHT WILL I GAIN AT CHRISTMAS?
What does the science say?
What does the science actually mean?
Why you don’t need to worry about overindulgence at Christmas.
The best way to navigate your fitness through Christmas
What the Science Says…
There is a really wonderful Narrative study on this topic called: Effect of the Holiday Season on Weight Gain: A Narrative Review [1]
It went through research databases and analysed all of the results from all of the studies it could find on this very subject.
It literally did the work for me. Which is great.
The study reviewed six studies for the adult population dating from 1985 all the way to 2013 and here are the breakdowns in black and white.
A quick note, I personally find it really hard to read studies and the way in which they word things - therefore I have summarised them to make the data accessible. If you just want to skip past, and find out what I think it all actually means…I won’t be offended.
Number of participants: 22
Method: An observational study with repeated weighing and fasting blood tests from one month before to one month after Christmas.
Conclusion: Over the Christmas period in all subjects an increase in weight was observed (mean 0.8kg), which was maintained through January.
Changes in nutritional status in adults over Christmas 1998 [3]
Number of participants: 26
Method: Twenty-six adults completed anthropometric, blood pressure and total blood cholesterol measurements before and after the Christmas holiday.
Conclusion: An increase in mean weight occurred by 0.93 kg.
A prospective study of holiday weight gain [4]
Number of participants: 195
Method: We measured body weight in a convenience sample of 195 adults. The subjects were weighed four times at intervals of six to eight weeks, so that weight change was determined for three periods: preholiday (from late September or early October to mid-November), holiday (from mid-November to early or mid-January), and postholiday (from early or mid-January to late February or early March)
Conclusion: The average holiday weight gain is less than commonly asserted. The mean weight increased during the holiday period (gain, 0.37+/-1.52 kg), but not during the preholiday period (gain, 0.18+/-1.49 kg); or the postholiday period (loss, 0.07+/-1.14 kg)
Weight and body composition change over a six-week holiday period [5]
Number of participants: 13 men and 21 women
Method: Baseline testing occurred the Monday or Tuesday prior to Thanksgiving Day (November 24 or 25, 2008), and the post-holiday assessment was the Monday or Tuesday after New Year's Day (January 5 or 6, 2009)
Conclusion: Thirteen men and 21 women ranging in age from 23-61 years completed the study. The majority of participants (24 of 34) perceived that they had gained weight, and four did gain ≥2 kg. However, despite some changes to dietary and exercise habits, on average there was no difference between pre-holiday weight (74.0±17.8 kg) and post-holiday weight (73.9±18.1 kg), nor between pre-holiday body fat percentage (25.4±9.0%) and post-holiday body fat percentage (25.4±8.9%). Despite a perception of substantial weight gain, body weight and body fat remained unchanged over a six-week holiday period.
Number of participants: 443
Method: In a secondary analysis of previously published data, ΔBW normalized over 90 d from mid-September/mid-October 1999 to mid-January/early March 2000 was analyzed by sex, age, and BMI
Conclusion: Sixty-five percent of men and 58% of women gained ≥0.5 kg BW, with ~50% of both groups gaining ≥1% of preholiday BW. Obese men (BMI ≥30) gained more BW than did obese women.
Number of participants: 148
Method: A total of 48 males and 100 females (age 18-65 years) with a mean body mass index of 25.1±0.5 kg/m(2) were evaluated in mid-November (visit 1) and early January (visit 2; across 57±0.5 days).
Conclusion: Our participants gained an average of 0.78 kg, which indicates the majority of average annual weight gain (1 kg/y) reported by others may occur during the holiday season. Obese participants are most at risk as they showed the greatest increases in BF%. Initial BW, not exercise, significantly predicted BF% and BW gain.
What does the Science actually mean?
There are always limitations to studies - many of these studies don’t tell us the frequency of weighing their participants which could give greater insight into how much weight was actually gained (or not). During the holidays you are going to gain a lot of water weight due to eating more calories in general, and many of those calories come from an increase in carbohydrates through food and alcohol. Across all of the studies, the most amount of weight gained by a single person IS 4.3kgs. She is described as a healthy woman in the 1985 study but she was only weighed 5 times during the time period of the study. Chances are she was caught on a day of high fluctuation as well due to many of the other factors that control scale weight, especially in women.
Another limitation is that they have all been done in the Northern Hemisphere where it is usually colder during the holiday season, which does impact behaviour relating to weight. but my instinct would suggest that would impact bodyweight increases, not decreases.
I have only summarised the studies that were controlled, not that were based on self-monitoring. With the self-monitoring studies, the trend is very similar in that weight isn’t gained by anywhere near as much as you think. The highest weight gain in a participant was 2.4kg.
The bottom line here is that on average across all of these studies, people only gained around 1lb of bodyweight or 0.45kgs.
Only one of these studies found no increase in weight gain and that is Weight and body composition change over a six-week holiday period [5].
There are two phrases I think it is important to focus on when looking at these conclusions.
The first:
“The average holiday weight gain is less than commonly asserted”
Meaning that the world is lying to you with regards to how much weight you might actually gain over the Holidays.
The second:
“Despite a perception of substantial weight gain, body weight and body fat remained unchanged over a six-week holiday period”
We all perceive to gain fat over this period, however, we actually don’t gain as much as we think we do.
This statement is true in life. I see this in my clients all the time, they believe that they are causing more setbacks to their health than they really are from missing one workout, or overeating on one particular day.
The premise that is so often peddled by the fitness industry, in that you should “train hard so you can play hard this Christmas” just doesn’t hold true either. In the study Effects of exercise during the holiday season on changes in body weight, body composition and blood pressure [7] they find that the biggest predictor of weight gain at Christmas is the starting weight of a participant - not the amount of exercise they actually do.
This all comes down to the all-or-nothing mentality. If you adopt this mindset you will always end up with nothing, because you live in a world where you expect perfection, and you believe that perfection is the only path to success.
And when you encounter events that challenge that path, like vacations, holidays and Christmas, you feel like a failure because you weren’t able to continue your path of perfection.
You need more balance in your mindset towards your health and fitness, and then you will be able to put these events, like Christmas, into better perspective.
Why You Don’t Need To Worry About Overindulgence At Christmas
There is a difference between body weight increase and body fat increase.
Now as you are reading this, although you are concerned about weight, in general, I respect that, scale weight is made up of many many factors, whereas if your concern is related to health and body composition then we need to look at Body Fat Percentage.
Two of the above studies looked at BFP. This again is only a best guess because to truly know your Body Fat Percentage, you need to have an autopsy. That’s a little inconvenient.
But that being said, this is what they found:
In the 2012 study [5}, they looked at BFP and concluded:
“No significant changes were observed in weight before and after the holiday period (74.0 kg versus 73.9 kg, difference −0.1 kg, p = 0.87) nor in body fat (25.4% versus 25.4%, difference 0.0%, p = 0.97).”
In the 2013 study [7] they also looked at BFP and concluded:
“Participants gained 0.78 kg (p < 0.001) and increased their fat percentage by 0.5%. It should be noted that obese subjects showed a greater increase in fat percentage compared to normal-weight subjects (1.6% versus 0.2%, resp., p < 0.05), but no difference was noted in body weight compared to normal-weight subjects”
This doesn't surprise me.
On TikTok I have put up a couple of videos about Weight Gain from overfeeding - and the Science on overfeeding would back up these studies as well.
In both of the Studies, you see that overeating a significant amount of calories each day led to minimal body fat gain.
In fact, in the first video it led to only 500g of total body fat gained, and in the second study [8], after 8 weeks of overeating every single day, only 9lbs was gained by the participants.
Christmas lasts half of that time at most…
The 2000 study [4] which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine also concluded that:
“Average holiday weight gain is 0.37 kg, far less than commonly asserted. As this gain is not reversed during spring or summer months, the net 0.48 kg fall/winter weight gain appears likely to contribute to the increase in body weight that frequently occurs during adulthood.”
This conclusion, in my opinion, sums up one of the biggest and most common issues I find in working with people online with The Strong and Confident Program who have a goal to lose weight.
The hardest battle after an extended period of indulgence is always getting back on track - because if you are able to get back on track, at the earliest opportunity afforded to you after Christmas, then losing 370g, really isn’t that daunting.
But because you believe you have set yourself back a lot further than that, due to the headlines, the messaging you see in Gyms and in Fitness Marketing and the two months of incessant fat-shaming, getting back on track seems so much harder than that of 370g of body weight.
The emotional weight you have gone through with Christmas feels more like 10kgs.
That is why so many people find it so very hard to simply get back on track after Christmas.
Interestingly, as a one-to-one coach, I have always found January to be a really slow month for sign-ups, compared to February and March. I believe this occurs for two reasons, the guilt people are feeling after Christmas, and the massive uphill battle they believe they have, combined with the fact people in January are still getting over the debt of Christmas.
Please stop worrying about how much weight you will gain at Christmas. The science isn’t there to back up what you see in the marketing and the headlines at this time of year.
On average its a gain of only 0.45kgs and that’s from a sample size of nearly 1000 people from all different walks of life, and who all had different body’s.
The Best Way To Navigate Your Fitness Through Christmas
In fact, if you have got this far into the article, you have already done one of the best things I can suggest to help you alleviate the guilt and anxiety you might be feeling about this time of year.
You have educated yourself on the objective facts.
With that knowledge, you can establish great power. You can establish perspective, and begin to regulate your emotional centre with your logical brain.
Before I wrote this article I put a post up on TikTok which summarised some of the studies and explained what to expect at Christmas in relation to weight gain. The video got this comment:
During Christmas, whenever you have feelings of guilt creeping in.
Whenever you feel yourself resisting the urge to say yes to something that you want to eat because you are worried about whether it is “good” or “bad” for you, I want you to think back to this article.
Think back to those hundreds and hundreds of people who were in those studies and averaged a weight gain of just 450g. Not the one stone you think you will gain by eating that mini Mars Bar out of the Celebrations tin.
Actually, just on that, why do Celebration Tins even have Bounties in them? Who wants Coconut Flavoured Chocolate at Christmas??????? Some things never cease to amaze me.
Knowing all of this is one aspect of how to navigate Christmas.
But another is that the work starts right now.
You need to practice behaviours that will help remove the guilt around all food, not just during Christmas. This is hard work, this is an ongoing journey, and Christmas can bring with it more emotionally difficult situations as well which might lead to higher bouts of indulgence and more challenging feelings around food-associated guilt.
For example, this year 2021, is my first Christmas in Australia. My fiancee is having to work on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and I am without any of my family who always made Christmas such a special time of year for me. We used to have a massive Boxing Day get-together, and I remember every year I would just sit by the window on Boxing Day morning watching every car pass my house, hoping the next one was my Aunty, my Uncle and my Cousins.
I loved going to the park and playing football with my Cousin, my Uncle and my Dad after Dinner and after we all got our presents. I never had Grandparents to celebrate Christmas with, so each year whilst I was a child, my extended family and my parents would always try to make Christmas as special as possible.
And they truly succeeded. I probably haven’t told them that enough in my life.
So I am without them all this Christmas. I will be on my own. A client has invited me round for Christmas Lunch which is incredibly generous, but it won’t replace the emotional gap I will feel,
And it will be very easy for me to replace that emotion with food.
As it always is as a human being.
If you feel more disconnected during the Christmas Season, you will replace that connection with food, and are more likely to overeat and still feel hungry. Even to the point of physical discomfort.
Therefore start now.
Start questioning your hunger. Is it emotional? Is it physical? Is it boredom? Is it stress? Is it tiredness? Is it low willpower due to a stressful busy day?
We feel hunger under all kinds of pressures, and being able to denote whether it is actually physical hunger - or emotional hunger will truly help you navigate your way to less overeating at Christmas.
If anxiety is high about gaining weight at Christmas, then you need to stop restricting your calories in the build-up to Christmas, stop restricting your food choice in the build-up to Christmas and begin to reduce your negative self-talk around your food and your body.
You can do this by, practising mindful eating and spending time with your food. Stop eating on the go and when in a rush. Nourish yourself by sitting with your food, giving yourself time to enjoy your food and listening to your body about whether it is full or requires some more food to be satiated.
When you do overeat, use compassion with yourself. Do this by investigating your hunger more, and understanding the emotional cause of why you overate, rather than just berating yourself for doing it. This will over time help with your negative self-talk, as you are internally investigating why this is occurring more, and bringing more understanding to your behaviour.
I am a huge fan of exercising at Christmas. Not because I think it offsets your calories because I know that’s not why we move. But during Christmas, I think it can be very important to keep moving. Let loose off of your plan, but try to move. Whether that be a big family walk, playing football with the family, a Christmas Day Bike Ride, or spending some time down the beach.
Exercise helps us digest food.
And you will, without a doubt be eating more food at Christmas. By moving your body, you will help the food get through your system, and the feeling of bloatedness and “weight gain” will be diminished. You will have more calories in your system, because it’s Christmas, and therefore more energy to move, it would be a missed opportunity to not see what movement feels like when you have more calories to work with.
Movement, especially resistance training, is always easier when you have more calories, and you could use this holiday season to explore what that feels like.
Essentially the body feels better when it moves, and if you don’t move during this time then the barrier of entry to movement post-Christmas will feel so much harder.
With my clients on The Strong and Confident Program I talk about their fitness dials.
Imagine your fitness is like a soundboard in a recording studio. But instead of the dials saying “Master Volume”, “Bass”, “Treble”, “Fade”, “Reverb” they had terms on them like:
Movement
Nutrition
Structured Eating
Work
Family
Mental Health
You can add whichever terms to the fitness dials you want, as we are all influenced in terms of fitness by different things.
But the goal, just like your soundboard is to create a harmonious symphony.
At a time like Christmas, the fitness dial of “Nutrition” will be dialled up to a 10, and therefore you must balance that with a lower dial somewhere else. For many people it could mean movement comes right down to a 1.
However things like work are likely to drop down to a lower number during the holidays, so you can allow that fall, and keep movement up at around 4 or 5, it will be so much easier in January to get that dial back up to where it was pre Christmas.
Essentially the balance to create the fitness symphony might change slightly, but it doesn’t mean it has to stop entirely.
Enter: Sir Isaac Newton - who was actually born on Christmas Day in 1642.
His First Law of Motion:
“That an object at rest remains at rest, and an object that is moving will continue to move straight and with constant velocity, if and only if there is no net force acting on that object.”
The key message here with both your nutrition and your movement during this time of year is to try not to stop completely.
You can dial it down yes because other parts of your life will be dialled up.
But try not to halt entirely.
Because if you stop both in terms of your nutrition and your movement, then you will indeed find it so much harder to start again and the feelings of Christmas failure, the feelings of Christmas Weight Gain will be compounded, and the longer you stay stopped, the more and more energy it will require to get started again.
All you have to do, with any Holiday Season, be it, Christmas, a Vacation, Easter, Thanksgiving, your Birthday or anything else, all you have to do is get back on track once it’s done.
If you can do that, you will never ever worry about how much weight you will gain at Christmas ever again.
Did You Find This Useful?
Firstly I want to say a huge thank you for reading my article. I hope that you now have a much better perspective on everything. With this perspective, I hope you can enjoy Christmas with your family, with your loved ones, or even enjoy the merriment that exists around you, if you don’t have a family to enjoy it with, like me, this year.
Christmas is a time for thankfulness, peace and love for all.
My wish for this article is that it has helped you find some peace from your anxiety around the holidays, combined with showing you a path to be able to continue and practice self-love.
If you are able to feel that within yourself, then you will be able to carry that forward into the world and help make this Christmas more special for everyone you come across, whether that be online, in person or any other way you socialise this Christmas.
All that is left for me to say is that I wish you, your family and your loved ones a truly Merry Christmas if you celebrate Christmas. Or a truly peaceful and loving time of year if you celebrate in another way.
Eat the Chestnuts on the Roasting Fire.
Enjoy your Yule Log Cake.
Eat the Selection Box of Chocolate.
But above all, create Happy and Loving Memories - because that is what you truly deserve to do.
I would also love to invite you to grab some free fitness goodies from me,
The Free Fitness Goodies include:
✅ Get yourself a free month of workouts (Home and Gym-based options)
✅ Get yourself a free copy of my e-book ”27 Ways To Faster Fast Loss”
✅ Get yourself a free customized Calorie Calculator
Straight to your Inbox
All you have to do is put your email address in below:
References:
Díaz-Zavala RG, Castro-Cantú MF, Valencia ME, Álvarez-Hernández G, Haby MM, Esparza-Romero J. Effect of the Holiday Season on Weight Gain: A Narrative Review. J Obes. 2017;2017:2085136. doi:10.1155/2017/2085136
Rees SG, Holman RR, Turner RC. The Christmas feast. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 1985 Dec 21-28;291(6511):1764-5. doi: 10.1136/bmj.291.6511.1764. PMID: 3936575; PMCID: PMC1419184.
Reid, R. and Hackett, A. (1999), Changes in nutritional status in adults over Christmas 1998. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 12: 513-516. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-277x.1999.00205.x
Yanovski JA, Yanovski SZ, Sovik KN, Nguyen TT, O'Neil PM, Sebring NG. A prospective study of holiday weight gain. N Engl J Med. 2000 Mar 23;342(12):861-7. doi: 10.1056/NEJM200003233421206. PMID: 10727591; PMCID: PMC4336296.
Wagner DR, Larson JN, Wengreen H. Weight and body composition change over a six-week holiday period. Eat Weight Disord. 2012 Mar;17(1):e54-6. doi: 10.1007/BF03325328. PMID: 22751272.
Cook CM, Subar AF, Troiano RP, Schoeller DA. Relation between holiday weight gain and total energy expenditure among 40- to 69-y-old men and women (OPEN study). Am J Clin Nutr. 2012 Mar;95(3):726-31. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.111.023036. Epub 2012 Feb 1. PMID: 22301936; PMCID: PMC3278247.
Stevenson JL, Krishnan S, Stoner MA, Goktas Z, Cooper JA. Effects of exercise during the holiday season on changes in body weight, body composition and blood pressure. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2013 Sep;67(9):944-9. doi: 10.1038/ejcn.2013.98. Epub 2013 May 22. PMID: 23695203.
6 Strategies To Help Stop Late Night Eating and Food Cravings
We have all been there.
it’s dark outside, it’s been a stressful day, and you’re lying in bed listening to one thing.
The rumble in your tum tum.
And as you pay more attention to it, the louder it gets. You then get up and head towards the light.
Like a person possessed. Your brain is screaming: “NO”. But your legs are just walking slowly but surely down the stairs, and towards the light.
You almost try to convince yourself that you will choose something “good” as with each step you justify your legs moving you towards the light.
You get there.
Your arm is on auto-pilot.
The hum is almost soothing, and the light is not too bright….and not too dark. It’s as mesmerising as a flame to a moth.
And before you made a single conscious decision you have already eaten the Milkybar Yoghurt that was just calling your name less than 20 seconds ago.
And as your scrape your tongue on the bottom of the plastic tub, making sure that you do not want to waste a single drop of that Milklybar goodness…the guilt, fear, and worry start to set in:
“Oh my god I’ve totally screwed up”
“Why am I a total failure?”
“I have no self-control”
“I’m never going to conquer this”
“Why am I such a slob?”
“What is wrong with me?”
And the blame game with the self sets in, and then the whole process is repeated.
So here are my top 6 Strategies to help you stop late-night eating and food cravings!
Briefly, before I begin I want to address the issue of “Does Late Night Snacking Lead To Weight Gain?”.
No. It doesn’t from a purely scientific and objective point of view.
The Calories in a Banana do not change between 18:58 and 19:02 on a Wednesday night.
Calories are Calories are Calories.
As this Instagram Post on my Page, points out:
But from a Human Perspective…ask yourself what kind of foods are you eating late at night? I’m pretty sure it’s not Apples and Oranges.
As this Instagram Post explains:
When Calories are controlled, timings of food make no difference to your overall success or not in Weight Loss.
There are arguments to be made for how eating later at night might affect your circadian rhythm, stress resistance and Gut Health. But this doesn’t change the caloric make up of the food and how your body processes the energy from food at night as opposed to during the day, it just influences your ability to stick to a Calorie Deficit over time.
However, late at night, staring into the fridge, you are less likely to be making decisions that are congruent to your Calorie Window and therefore congruent to your goals.
So bear that in mind. Please.
Table of Contents for: “6 Strategies To Help Stop Late Night Eating and Food Cravings”
Eat More Calories
Eat more protein
Eat more Fibre and Drink More Water
Get More Sleep
Lower Stress and Anxiety and Boredom
Stop restricting yourself to lose weight
Eat More Calories
Yup. I said it. You need to eat more.
That might be a little too much….but the image will stick in your head for sure!
According to a paper called The Biology of Binge Eating, 2010, Food Deprivation is a key indicator of Binge Eating Disorder.
The 2010 paper wanted “to examine the literature on binge eating to gain a better understanding of its biological foundations and their role in the eating disorders” [1]
And in the section relating to Food Deprivation it concluded:
“Rats maintained on a restricted feeding schedule, during which they receive 66% of the amount of food that free eating rats consume, increase their caloric intake by 42% compared with sated rats when allowed ad lib access to food. Increased consumption is evident within 2 hours of the return of the food and persists for up to 4 hours (Hagan et al., 2003). This increased consumption over a discrete period of time mirrors behaviors seen in humans who binge eat.” [1]
Ergo, just a 44% reduction in your calories, can lead to a 42% increase in caloric intake.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to renege on my stance of a Calorie Deficit being required to lose weight, but I am going to hammer home the point, your Calorie Deficit must be built on certain foundations to make sure that you can adhere to it in the long term, and not feel overly restricted, leading to a Binge Episode further down the track.
These principles are outlined by my Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life:
And many of these will re-occur in this article. But the most important one is to make sure your Deficit is not too aggressive.
It is far far better to have slow sustainable progress that gives you flexibility and doesn’t lead you on a path to undercutting your psychological progress by falling into a trap of Binge Eating at night than to get aggressive results that you know are not sustainable.
Your Calorie Deficit should at a minimum be set to your Basal Metabolic Rate, and at a maximum at your Goal Bodyweight in LBS multiplied by 12.
To make sure you get that in place - download my Free Calorie Calculator right here.
Yes, by eating more, your weight loss will happen at a reduced rate. But this reduced rate will also allow for:
The flexibility you need as a human being who has emotions.
You to build muscle and improve your Basal Metabolic Rate whilst still in deficit
Greater adherence to actually being in a Calorie Deficit
Late-night snacking so very often comes from a place of restriction throughout the day - and this wouldn’t be so bad if, at night you ate foods congruent to your goals. However quite often late at night…you aren’t snacking on Apples and Broccolli. Due to the restriction throughout the day, you get cravings for foods that are a lot more palatable - and often a lot higher in calories.
This is due to a number of factors, but one obvious one is, come to the end of the day, you are out of energy - and therefore convenience becomes king. Convenient foods are far higher in calories - and far tastier.
Which then puts you into a cycle of craving said foods more the following day…and so it continues.
This study found when they took 20 weight-stable adults and split them into two groups. One group was given an ultra-processed diet and the other an unprocessed diet for 2 weeks. Subjects were told to consume as much or as little as desired. Rather unsurprisingly, the Group that was given the Ultra Processed DIet consumed on average 508kcal/day more with increased consumption of carbohydrates and fat, but not Protein. [2]
This brings me nicely to my next Strategy for you:
2. Eat more Protein
In terms of quelling hunger and regulating appetite, Protein has two main roles.
It makes you feel fuller for longer
It lowers your desire to eat late at night
In this study from 2011, the researchers took 27 overweight or obese men, split them into two groups. Group One was given a Higher Protein (HP) Diet at 25% of energy as Protein, and Group 2 was given a Normal Protein (NP) Diet at 14% of energy as Protein.
The study concluded the following:
“When compared to NP, the HP group experienced lower late-night desire to eat and preoccupation with thoughts of food”
and,
“Collectively, this data supports the consumption of HP intake, but not greater eating frequency, for improved appetite control and satiety in overweight/obese men during energy restriction-induced weight loss” [3]
I often feel that when we discuss eating more protein, you think it has to be the dominant component of your diet. This isn’t true. As you can see from the study above Protein consumption was still only a quarter of dietary intake and garnered great results for halting late-night snacking.
To figure out your Protein Intake I would recommend you download my Calorie and Macro Calculator here: Free Macro Calculator
However, if you want to know the numbers without doing that they are as follows:
Eat 0.8g-1.1g of Protein each day per LB of Lean Body Mass.
However those numbers can be quite hard to achieve, and thus if you start by aiming for just 100g a day if you eat meat, and 80g a day if you don’t then you should be in a pretty good place.
If you would like some more help with your diet and your training then get my Ultimate Guide to your Diet when Working Out:
3. Eat more Fibre and Drink More Water
If you have read a number of my Blogs you will know that I discuss this a lot.
And the prevalence of it is extremely important. Not just if you are wanting to lose weight, but to also curb those late-night snacks.
In terms of Fibre, you want to be keeping this as a key feature of your diet - think of it as the “other Macro-Nutrient”.
Research in Fibre is ever-evolving, and I have it on good authority that what we thought we knew about Fibre may well develop deeper very soon.
Fibre has the ability to do two things that will help curb your hunger:
High Fibre intake stretches the stomach and slows its emptying rate - therefore making you feel fuller for longer
Fibre also ferments in the Bowel, which is thought to increase feelings of fullness as it releases short-chain fatty acids.
Then if we look at this in the context of your goal to lose weight, being fuller for longer throughout the day is an awesome win for you…and if it is going to help you stop eating high-calorie snacks late at night then that too will help you keep your calories down over time.
Added to everything else…
You will be increasing your Vegetable intake - and no bad can come from that can it?
Now onto Water…
Water is filling, and can very much reduce appetite, especially when consumed before you eat.
This study titled: “Association between water consumption and body weight outcomes: a systematic review”
It found:
“Of 4963 retrieved records, 11 original studies and 2 systematic reviews were included. In participants dieting for weight loss or maintenance, a randomized controlled trial, a nonrandomized controlled trial, and an observational longitudinal study showed that increased water consumption, in addition to a program for weight loss or maintenance, reduced body weight after 3-12 mo compared with such a program alone” [4]
Hunger and thirst are interlinked also. When I am working with a friend who I coach online, and their calorie consumption is where it needs to be, but they are still feeling hungry, I will point them towards their water bottle, and remind them of my Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life or the blog post below.
GET A FREE MONTH OF COACHING WITH ME; JUST CLICK BELOW TO FIND OUT HOW TO APPLY
Back to water…
I will always ask them to aim for 3 liters a day.
And they react like this:
This is a lofty goal.
But I found that setting this goal higher, as it is a behaviour that can be very easily done, means that my clients would be more than likely to hit an amount appropriate for them and their goals.
Thus, lowering their hunger, and therefore their caloric intake.
So, if it’s late at night, and you know that going to the fridge for that snack is an option that isn’t going to make you feel your best, then you should probably think about reaching for the water bottle first.
Establish if you are hungry or thirsty.
And I reckon about 80% of the time, the water will do the trick.
If you have some water, wait 15mins, and still think you are hungry…then consider having some food….but my best advice in this situation would be:
4. Get More Sleep
The Blog Post I published before this one is all about “How Sleep Affects Your Weight”.
But in terms of more sleep leading to less late-night snacking, I think the point is rather obvious. If you are in bed asleep, you’re not in the kitchen eating food.
Then the benefit of being in bed earlier will help reduce your calorie intake the following day. Added to that, improved sleep, helps you regulate your emotional responses the next day, and if emotional eating is a reason for your late-night snacking then a great strategy against that will be getting those extra hours of zzzz’s.
For optimal sleep, you want to plan for about 8 hours of sleep a night. One thing that always perplexes me about the way you manage sleep is this:
You rely on your wake-up time being the marker of your total time sleep.
But your wake-up time is out of your control pretty much. You could be woken up early, which frequently happens, by some traffic, a bird, a child, needing a wee.
Suddenly you have had a bad night’s sleep because you went to bed at 11:00 pm hoping you would get your 7 hours in and suddenly woke up at 5 am.
Plan better.
If you went to bed at 10:00 pm suddenly 5 am isn’t such a bad wake-up time.
Sleep is the foundation that your appetite control is built on. This study found a correlation between lack of sleep in duration and increased Grehlin and lack of sleep in duration and decreased Leptin.
Grehlin is a hormone that is responsible for how hungry you get. Leptin is the hormone responsible for how full you feel.
So yeah. Poor sleep leads to these two hormones very much working against your ability to curb that late-night eating.
Other strategies to improve your sleep are:
Exercise Regularly
Sleep with your Circadian Rhythm
Listen to Sleep Stories (link to my YouTube Sleep Stories)
Listen to Sleep Meditations (link to my YouTube Sleep Meditations)
Stop Drinking Caffeine from 11:00 am
Reduce Alcohol Intake
And Brush Your Teeth…
This is anecdotal evidence, as is in there is ZERO Science to actually back this up, but brushing your teeth has been reported to stop people snacking.
And it makes sense right?
Have you ever had Orange Juice straight after you brushed your teeth?
The combination of tastes, the effort of going to all that trouble to have to brush your teeth again, or if there is some psychological thing about the act of brushing your teeth priming your mind for sleep as opposed to food…but…whatever works.
Maybe try it next time your legs are walking to the fridge and the brain is saying “NOOOOOOOO”. See if it helps.
5. Lower Your Stress, Anxiety and Boredom
I know that this is easier said than done. But if you can at least practice some behaviors that will help you lower these two things, then you are going to put yourself into a better position when it comes to these food cravings, especially late at night.
Of these 7 strategies, there are 2 that most people will ignore.
Get More Sleep and Lower Stress, Anxiety and Boredom (especially Stress and Boredom)
Personally, I believe them to be the most important two on the list, for the exact same reason - they are mostly overlooked.
We seem to be happy to live in the two states of being Stressed and being Bored quite a lot in this day and age. It's almost a Social Norm for us, to just accept that we will be stressed and that boredom is one of those things.
However, when you accept living this way, as opposed to learning to control it, you pay the consequences for it as well.
And the consequences of chronic stress, and Emotional Eating manifesting itself as Boredom Eating are indeed not fun things to be faced with.
So let me show you the link between these emotions and how that is impacting your Fitness Goals.
Does Stress Lead To Increased Food Intake?
This study [6] called “Stress and Eating Behaviours”
“Repeated bouts of minor daily stressors that keep the stress system in a chronically activated state may alter brain reward/motivation pathways involved in wanting and seeking hyper-palatable foods and induce metabolic changes that promote weight and body fat mass”
The part of this that I find correlates majorly to late-night eating is the term “hyper-palatable foods”. When you are stressed you aren’t eating apples and oranges. You’re eating Apple Pies and Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
Does Anxiety Lead To Increased Food Intake?
This study [7] from 2017 is called “Effects of anxiety on caloric intake and satiety-related brain activation in women and men”.
It took twenty-nine twin pairs (58 individuals) and asked them to fill out a questionnaire about their tendency to be anxious. Participants had to answer questions like:
“I worry too much over something that really doesn’t matter”
“I am content; I am a steady person”
and questions like:
“I am tense; I am worried” and “I feel calm; I feel secure”.
All items are rated on a 4-point scale (e.g., from “Almost Never” to “Almost Always”)
Participants were then given an all-you-can-eat buffet, as a thank you for filling out the questionnaire, and were not told their intake was being recorded.
And those that scored a higher rating of anxious feelings on the questionnaire also ate more food at the buffet (Fig A)
As you can see from the graphs. The Twin that scored higher on the Trait Anxiety Scale also ate more food at the Buffet, independent of BMI (Fig B)
The study concluded the following:
“In conclusion, the current findings suggest that anxiety promotes caloric consumption and consumption of high-fat foods in women. We also provide evidence that anxiety alters brain responses to satiety such that the normal reduction in activation by high-calorie food cues induced by a meal does not occur in highly anxious women, suggesting a disruption in neural circuitry that could promote overeating. Anxiety may be a risk factor for obesity, but we show this risk is likely limited to people with a genetic susceptibility to weight gain”
So this gets more complex than just…you’re anxious so you increase your calories.
It also means that if you are anxious, you might show signs of Leptin Resistance which therefore means you won’t know if you are full or not.
Does Boredom Lead To Increased Food Intake?
I think we all know this to be true colloquially.
However, this study from 2012 [8] by the University of Limerick, proves it to be true.
Researchers wanted to establish whether or not Boredom eating is a distinct construct away from other negative emotions by revising the Emotional Eating Scale.
Results found were: “On the open-ended items, participants more often reported eating in response to boredom than the other emotions”
They also stated: “boredom leads to unhealthy eating, as it helps to distract from the unpleasant boredom experience.”
Added to that, a study in 2016 by the University of Central Lancashire ran a couple of tests to measure this also.
The first test asked 52 people to fill out a questionnaire about their food preferences, then complete a task of copying the same group of letters over and over again. They then filled out the questionnaire again.
The second test was 45 participants and they got to watch either a funny video or a boring video. As they watched bowls of snacks were left out for the participants for them to eat ad libitum.
They found that:
“From the first study showed people were more likely to express a preference for unhealthy foods like crisps, sweets and fast food after completing the boring task.
The results from the second study showed that the participants who had watched the boring video ate significantly more unhealthy food.” [9]
How To Lower Stress, Anxiety, and Boredom
You will start to see a pattern emerging in all of these Strategies and the positive behaviors that will help you stop those late-night food cravings.
Some of these will help all three categories, some of them will only help one emotion, however, all of them will go some way to helping you stop those late-night cravings for food:
Exercise Regularly (again)
Improve Your Sleep (again) by not staying up late mindlessly watching tv and playing video games - get to bed earlier and turn off the electronics
Eat more nutritious food
Meditate
Reduce Caffeine intake
Journal Daily
Communicate your feelings
Manage your to-do list to avoid procrastination
Get focused on what you want from life
Pick Up A Hobby
Pick a few from the list, the ones that excite you the most and have the lowest barrier of entry for you, and see if that helps you with those late-night munchies.
6. Stop Restricting Food
I would say that food avoidance is one of the biggest reasons that people crave food.
Pink Elephant syndrome.
You know, if I’m telling you not think of that big, round, funny-looking Pink Elephant…
You’re going to think of it.
Put into the mix that we have a sensual relationship with food, and if I tell you not to eat something….you are going to crave it more and more.
And the cravings ALWAYS WIN.
Because they rear their head, at night, when you are stressed, anxious, and bored.
Are you starting to see a theme here?
This is also a key construct in why Diets Fail - because many Diets require you to give up foods you enjoy. But the cravings will always win because your willpower is finite - and then the feelings of guilt and failure set in, perpetuating the cycle that has led you to look for a solution in the first place.
This study [10] from 2005, is called “The Effect of Deprivation on Food Cravings” and for one week they took 103 Female Undergraduates and deprived them of Chocolate, Vanilla or not deprivation at all.
The result was:
“Chocolate-deprived restrained eaters consumed more chocolate food than did any other group. Restrained eaters experienced more food cravings than did unrestrained eaters and were more likely to eat the craved food”
But for me the most interesting conclusion was this:
“Moreover, restrained eaters deprived of chocolate spent the least time doing an anagram task before a "taste-rating task" in which they expected that chocolate foods might be available”
So if you are deprived, not only will you actually end up eating more, but you will also rush through life at times where you think the food that you are deprived from is on the other side of the task - and as we know from other studies when you are in a state of stress, you will indeed consume more food.
The final conclusion from this study was the following:
“Converging measures of craving indicate that deprivation causes craving and overeating, but primarily in restrained eaters.”
Which draws a direct correlation between deprivation - and overeating especially in those who are abstaining from certain foods.
Ergo, to conquer those cravings, give yourself permission to eat the foods you enjoy the most.
Remember, if it is within your Calorie Window it won’t halt your progress. Added to that…even if it is outside your Calorie Window, having it might still do less damage to your overall goals than not having it at all.
Remember…CRAVINGS ALWAYS WIN because WILLPOWER IS FINITE.
And by giving yourself permission to eat these foods you will eradicate many negative feelings you attach to “indulging”.
Bottom Line
These strategies are here to help you understand why you might be behaving in a certain way. All 6 might work a treat for you, you might only need one or two of them to find success.
As I have been writing this article, someone has reached out to me on Instagram discussing her past trauma and how that effects her eating, especially late at night. Emotional Eating is a whole other topic, and although some of what I have shared in this article might be helpful to you, if you are dealing with something a lot deeper then I urge you to get the proper help needed for that.
In our conversations, this person explained to me that as part of dealing with the trauma it leads her to eat foods that she is craving, foods that she also knows work against her fitness goals.
But in this instance, working on the trauma and resolving what happened is much more important. If eating choclate after a therpay session helps you cope with the therapy and is a part of the process of your healing, then you have to understand that is going to be better for your long term success as a person, as opposed to your short term success for your fitness goals.
To be hungry is normal.
To have cravings is normal.
To have an appetite is normal.
To have reduced willpower in the evenings is normal.
I don’t want you to have read this article and then thought that because you can’t seem to avoid late-night snacking, even when you implement some of the things in this article you are in some way “broken”.
We all need to stop trying to find ways of erasing our human self, in the pursuit of fitness.
You don’t need appetite suppressants, you don’t need bio hacks and you don’t need to just “have more willpower”.
You more than likely need to have more self-empathy and understanding for your own human condition.
And you probably need to:
Exercise some more to reduce your stress
Get to Bed earlier to help reduce your stress
Stop restricting yourself away from foods you love….to reduce your stress.
Your cravings come from too much stress and drained willpower at the end of the day.
Luckily, that’s far easier worked upon than trying to “fix” what isn’t broken in the first place.
Did You Find This Useful?
Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.
I work with clients all over the world in my One on One Coaching Program called The Strong & Confident Program.
My aim with the friends I work with is to give them so much more out of their fitness by focussing them on the process of getting stronger and therefore making them more confident.
Just like with this article - where I like to give as much help to you as I can.
My approach to online training is no different. The whole program is about you - how best can I serve you, and therefore help you in the best way possible.
If you want to find out more about how the Strong & Confident Program works, and get a free month of coaching from me, then please fill out the application form below…and I will get back to you within 48 hours.
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Thank you so much for reading my work.
Speak again soon,
Coach Adam
References:
Mathes, W. F., Brownley, K. A., Mo, X., & Bulik, C. M. (2009). The biology of binge eating. Appetite, 52(3), 545–553. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2009.03.005
Hall KD, Ayuketah A, Brychta R, Cai H, Cassimatis T, Chen KY, Chung ST, Costa E, Courville A, Darcey V, Fletcher LA, Forde CG, Gharib AM, Guo J, Howard R, Joseph PV, McGehee S, Ouwerkerk R, Raisinger K, Rozga I, Stagliano M, Walter M, Walter PJ, Yang S, Zhou M. Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):67-77.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008. Epub 2019 May 16. Erratum in: Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):226. Erratum in: Cell Metab. 2020 Oct 6;32(4):690. PMID: 31105044; PMCID: PMC7946062.
Leidy HJ, Tang M, Armstrong CL, Martin CB, Campbell WW. The effects of consuming frequent, higher protein meals on appetite and satiety during weight loss in overweight/obese men. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2011 Apr;19(4):818-24. doi: 10.1038/oby.2010.203. Epub 2010 Sep 16. PMID: 20847729; PMCID: PMC4564867.
Muckelbauer R, Sarganas G, Grüneis A, Müller-Nordhorn J. Association between water consumption and body weight outcomes: a systematic review. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013 Aug;98(2):282-99. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.112.055061. Epub 2013 Jun 26. PMID: 23803882.
Taheri S, Lin L, Austin D, Young T, Mignot E. Short sleep duration is associated with reduced leptin, elevated ghrelin, and increased body mass index. PLoS Med. 2004 Dec;1(3):e62. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0010062. Epub 2004 Dec 7. PMID: 15602591; PMCID: PMC535701.
Yau, Y. H., & Potenza, M. N. (2013). Stress and eating behaviors. Minerva endocrinologica, 38(3), 255–267.
Mestre, Z. L., Melhorn, S. J., Askren, M. K., Tyagi, V., Gatenby, C., Young, L., Mehta, S., Webb, M. F., Grabowski, T. J., & Schur, E. A. (2016). Effects of Anxiety on Caloric Intake and Satiety-Related Brain Activation in Women and Men. Psychosomatic medicine, 78(4), 454–464. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000299
Koball AM, Meers MR, Storfer-Isser A, Domoff SE, Musher-Eizenman DR. Eating when bored: revision of the emotional eating scale with a focus on boredom. Health Psychol. 2012 Jul;31(4):521-4. doi: 10.1037/a0025893. Epub 2011 Oct 17. PMID: 22004466.
British Psychological Society (BPS). "Bored people reach for the chips." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 April 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160427081756.htm>.