*Tips to Avoid Mindless Weight Gain During the Holidays*

Budget Your Calories

If you're heading to a party and know you'll be surrounded by food, prepare for it by cutting your portions in half during the rest of the day. If you can save 300-500 calories before the party, that means you can eat more. But don't go to the party starving. Curb your appetite with two glasses of water and something with fiber, like a cup of baby carrots with hummus, so you won't be ravenous when you head out the door.

Hit the Veggie Platter

Appetizers are a waist-wrecker at parties because they're usually high in calories, drizzled in some kind of sauce, and so small that you can mindlessly pack away a half dozen before you've even said hello to the hosts.
Stay away from the starchy stuff and load up your plate with veggies-they'll help keep your calories down and keep you full. Many of these parties are held late at night, and you don't want to load up on carbohydrates then, anyway.

Pick Protein

The protein station is also an area you'll want to hover around. Lettuce wraps, turkey slices, or other meat appetizers are good options because they'll keep you full and take longer to digest than muffins and breads.

Select Your Sin

I always recommend if you're going to indulge in alcohol, don't indulge in food, or if you're going to indulge in food, don't indulge in alcohol. Pick your vice and stick with it-and try to keep it in moderation. And if you do choose to imbibe, try to drink one glass of water in between the alcoholic stuff. That will slow you down, and keep you hydrated for the next day.

Talk More, Eat Less

The whole point of a party is to catch up with people, so spend more time chatting and less time chewing. At the dinner table, take a few bites then strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to you (please swallow first). Another trick is to match your partner or the person you're talking with, bite for bite. A British study found fast-eating men were 84 percent more likely to be overweight than slower eaters. It is true for women also.

Shrink Your Plate

This is one of the first rules we teach in our weight management program. You should

eat your largest meal of the day from a 10-inch plate, rather than the normal 12-inch one, for a month. People tend to over-serve on larger plates, and a 2-inch difference in plate diameter would result in 22 percent fewer calories served and weight loss of around 18 pounds per year.

Shake Up Your Cheat Days

If you have a cheat day don't be afraid to change it. If you usually cheat on Sunday but have a party on Thursday, shift your schedule so you can eat guilt-free mid-week.

Wake Up to Yogurt

The best way to recover from a holiday meal? Get right back on the horse. Continue with your regular diet and exercise schedule, and let the previous day go. Start the next morning with a glass of water and something light, like fruit and yogurt, to detoxify the body. Then continue to eat light for the rest of the next day. ( We recommend and use Total Meal for most of our breakfasts - better nutrition.) Total Meal

Burn It Off

Though there are many tricks and tips for losing weight, packing on the pounds comes down to simple math: Consume more than you burn off, and you'll gain weight. Sadly, increasing your exercise workload isn't an effective way to cancel out chronic bingeing, during the holidays or any time of the year.

Here's an idea of how much exercise you'd have to do to break even on your holiday indulgences:
2,100 jumping jacks: This exercise will sweat off the calories in 1 cup of egg nog
280 pushups: Sheds the calories in one glass of wine
1 hour, 30 minutes of calisthenics: Burns off a serving of nuts
2 hours of moderate walking: Eradicates one slice of pecan pie
13 minutes of jumprope: This activity will make that shot you took last night a distant memory