We're coming into the holiday season and you know what that means.  Huge amounts of high calorie, tempting, diet busting, yummy food.

 Worse than all of that is what most people striving to stay in shape do to compensate for it.  I know I, myself, am a little guilty of this diet sin on Thanksgiving and Christmas day.

You are about to enter the time of year where you're going to face this challenge - from Thanksgiving, through New Years.  Many people just write this time of year off in their mind and then face an even tougher uphill battle come the new year. 

Let's Suppose you’re eating a very clean whole food based diet and you have a banquet or a holiday party coming up.  You’re expecting a big meal to be served for dinner, and there will be open bar with lots and lots of alcohol and party type foods.  You’re not sure if there will be any healthy food there, but you are sure that you’re going to be in a festive, partying mood which could jeopardize all that you've accomplished to date.  What should you do?  Should you cut back on your food earlier in the day to make room for the big feast?  It works out to be the same in end, right?

Wrong!

What I’ve just described is commonly known as "banking calories," which is analogous to saving calories like money because you're going to spend more later, and it’s a very common practice among dieters. 

So should you bank calories? 

If you’re really serious about your diet and fitness goals however, then the answer is no, you should NOT “bank calories!  Here's why and here's what you should do instead:

First of all, if you're being really honest with yourself, you have to agree that there's almost always something healthy to eat at any holiday gathering.  You know those tables you see at holiday parties that are covered with mountains of chips, dips, pretzels, cookies, salami, candies, cheese, punch, liquor, and a seemingly endless assortment of other goodies?  Well, did you also notice that there's usually a tray full of carrot sticks, cauliflower, celery, fruit, turkey breast and other healthy snacks too?

No matter where you are, you always have options, so make the best choice you can based on whatever your options are.  If nothing else, you can choose to eat a small portion of "party foods" rather than a huge portion, thereby obeying the law of calorie balance.

If you skip meals or eat less earlier in the day to bank calories for a big feast at night, you are thinking only in terms of an overall sum of calories, and not about the deprivation and then overload you're putting your body through.  You're also depriving yourself of the valuable nutrition you need all day long that come from healthy food, as well as the small frequent meals required to stoke the furnace of your metabolism. 

You have got to keep throwing wood into the fire to keep it lit...

Not only that, but eating less early in the day in anticipation for overeating later is more likely to increase your appetite, clouding your judgment and causing you to binge or eat much more than you thought you would at night when the banquet does arrive.

Eating healthy food earlier in the day is likely to keep you satisfied throughout the day and you'll be less likely to overeat in the evening.  High fiber foods, healthy fats and especially lean protein, tend to suppress your appetite the most.

I don’t like the concept of "banking calories." Your body just doesn't work that way - it tends to seek equilibrium by adjusting your appetite to the point where you consume the same total amount of calories in the end anyway.

Furthermore, if you have been training hard and optimizing your metabolism by eating well for so long, the last thing you should want to do is put out the fire you've worked so hard to ignite inside you. Especially before consuming foods that your body has become un-accustomed to.

A starving and bingeing pattern will almost certainly cause more damage than an occasional oversize meal.  Some dieticians might even say that this kind of behavior borders on disordered eating.

A better approach is to stay on your regular menu of healthy foods and small meals through the entire day -business as usual - and then go ahead and treat yourself to a "cheat meal," but sure to keep your portions small.

It should be a big relief to know that on special occasions, whether it's a party, restaurant meal, banquet or holiday dinner, you can eat whatever you want with little or no ill effect on body composition, as long as you respect the law of calorie balance. However, you CANNOT starve and binge and expect not to reap negative metabolic consequences.

To burn fat and be healthy, you don't have to be a "party pooper" or completely deny yourself of foods you enjoy, but you do need to have the discipline to stick with your regular meal plan most of the time and control your portion sizes when it's time to have a little fun.

Happy Holidays!

Dennys Passeto, CPT