Exercise cannot stave off Holiday weight gain

Study suggests moderation, nothing can replace high-calorie foods and beverages

By Brenda Goodman

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, 27 november, 2013 HealthDay News)-Hoping to counter all those Thanksgiving calories with the extra exercise?

A recent study suggests the strategy can't keep off the holiday pounds.

Researchers followed 48 men and 100 women for the six weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's celebrations. They ranged between 18 and 65 years.

Half reported to be serious and ordinary exercisers. On average, they said, they worked up a sweat nearly five hours each week, nearly twice as much moderate physical activity is recommended by the American Heart Association. The other half copped to being couch potatoes.

The researchers weighed and measured each person to calculate their body mass index (BMI) before and after the holidays. They are also a measure of the proportion of body fat and took their blood pressure.

From mid November to early January, people in the study had an average of one and a half pounds. Men were slightly more, around two pounds each, while the women got a little less about a pound apiece.

A kilo or two might not sound so bad, but studies have shown that on average, people get about two pounds each year. It's called weight creep. And studies have shown that when most people put it, they never take off.

After 10 years of small annual increases are an additional 20 pounds of fat. That means the holiday weight gain may be a more important factor in the obesity epidemic than many realize, says researcher Jamie Cooper, Assistant professor of nutritional sciences at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

People who were obese at the start of the study had the largest increases in weight. They also had significant increase in their percentage of body fat. In fact, starting weight the best predictor of how much weight and fat a person can get.

Exercise had a significant impact on holiday weight gain. Scientists are not entirely sure why.

On the other hand, told Cooper that it could be that the study did not have enough participants to detect small differences in weight change between exercisers and non-exercisers.

But she said the results could also mean that people just eat more calories than they burn off, even with all that physical activity.

"If you think about walking in a run, if you are running in 30 minutes and to run three miles in that time, you burn about 300 calories. Well, a pumpkin pie without anything on it is about 300 calories, "Cooper said. "So, it's really easy to eat all these calories that you burn during exercise and then some."

Exercise also increases the appetite, which can lead to even more overeating.

Cooper said that there really is no substitute for moderation during the holidays, a time when food is much more likely to be loaded with hidden fats and sugars and calories.