Health Wise
with Crystal Han
Overeating During the Holidays
W
ith Thanksgiving
just behind us, the
temptation to eat as
much delicious food as
possible may or may not have gotten
the best of us. But we’re not done yet.
Since the holidays only roll around once
a year, it might be easy for us to justify
overindulging in the things we like.
After all, a few days of binge eating here
and there can’t hurt us, right? In a way,
this is true, but that doesn’t mean that
overeating doesn’t have its dangers.
On average, Americans consume
around 3,000 extra calories during a
Thanksgiving meal. While this might
sound alarming, the good news is that
it takes about 3,500 calories over what
your body normally burns to gain a
single pound of fat, meaning that you’ll
walk away from your Thanksgiving meal
only one pound heavier. That one-time
splurge is certainly not going to give
you diabetes or heart disease, but it can
easily trigger a cycle of overeating.
When you overload on too much
food, your body goes into a “red alert”
mode. Rather than working to convert
the food you’ve eaten into healthy by-
products, your body sends its hormonal
and metabolic systems into overdrive to
manage the sheer quantity of what it’s
getting. Your pancreas produces extra
insulin to quickly remove the sudden
rush of sugar in your bloodstream, and
it will continue to do this until your
brain signals that your blood sugar levels
are safe. Usually by the time your brain
sends this signal, too much sugar has
been removed, resulting in a low blood
sugar episode that leaves you feeling
tired, dizzy, and sometimes depressed.
These unpleasant feelings are often
abated by eating more sugars and carbs,
bringing you back to square one.
With Christmas following right
on the heels of Thanksgiving, and the
subsequent parties, potlucks, and family
feasts, it’s easy to see how splurging at
one event sets the stage for splurging at
others. Your body quickly decides that
the excess food you’re consuming is the
new normal and it comes to expect more
at every meal, making it even harder
to resist all of those delicious treats. If
you continue to overeat, your stomach
eventually loses the ability to signal the
brain that you’re full, which further
exacerbates the problem. Much like
when you start a strict diet, when you
try to return to a normal caloric intake
after the holidays, your body responds
as though you’re being starved. You
feel perpetually hungry and irritable,
prompting you to reach for more food
to feel better. And sure, maybe this only
results in a few extra holiday season
pounds, but those pounds can quickly
add up as the years go by, making it
more diffi cult and more discouraging
to lose them.
Thankfully