Is weight loss in your new year's resolution?

We're coming to the end of the eating extravaganza that is December. In our household we have 2 birthdays as well as Christmas and New Years as excuses to over-indulge. This year we had a landmark birthday, 2 xmas suppers and we have plans for both Dec 31 and Jan 1. We should be making resolutions to lose weight in starting in January, especially as we look forward to our late winter holiday, but we aren't.

I'm going to be rifting off several posts by Yoni Freedhoff the first being the fallacy that one gains 3 to 5 kgs over Christmas. Most people only gain 1kg but that's a hard 1kg to lose again. It adds up so if it's not the New Years resolution, what to do? Lifestyle change is always the answer!

My SO and I have always approached weight maintenance differently. Him by decreasing calories from fat and me by exercising. He does a lot of lip service to aerobic exercise and I do the same for food choices. I do exercise because I really enjoy it and I can eat what I want. We both lost around 7 kg between 1998 and 1999 and have kept it off. Reading the most up-to-date research, it seems that his is the more effective method. Not gaining weight is much easier than having to take it off. For us this means label reading and portion measurement until we get the idea of what a serving size is...and it's always much smaller than anticipated. We also always drink diet pop - carbonated chemical soup may as well be calorie-free since it's already nutrition free.

For me, it all goes sideways when I fall into the magical idea of weight set-points. That's the idea that it doesn't matter what I eat, I won't gain weight. Uh huh. Last time I tried that I gained 3 kilos from eating pub food after golf. Apparently some people use the idea of a societal weight set point as an excuse for their weight. Actually the idea of a lifestyle set point which makes a lot more sense. It's why we quickly loose some weight after holidays as we return to our normal eating habits.

So what about those resolutions? Mine is to continue to educate myself about nutrition and health and choose my food wisely. Happily after all this time, my tastes have changed and I can eat half a mini blizzard without the other half calling me from the freezer. I'm hoping to get SO to get the idea of hard aerobics out of his exercise routine and do the same - no more bootcamp for us but more ab exercises all around! We're getting more subject to injuries that take a long time to heal.

Have a great 2011 because, you know, the world ends in 2012. Kind of like Y2K only Y2K12. No pressure.