The holiday season is right around the corner. This festive season brings eggnog, gingerbread cookies, minty candy canes, and sausage stuffing with way too much gravy, and for many, it also brings weight gain. A new study suggests it doesn’t have to be that way. Preventing holiday weight gain may be as easy as dusting off your scale and weighing yourself every day.

Holiday weight gain is reported to be one to three pounds per year. Although it’s a small amount of weight, the problem is the weight is often not lost after the holiday. Overeating during the holiday season has been identified as a likely contributor to small weight gains that add up over time and can lead to obesity. If you are already overweight or obese, you are susceptible to gaining the most weight over the holidays.

Researchers at the University of Georgia (UGA) conducted a study to find out if daily self-weighing using visual graphical feedback would prevent holiday weight gain. The researchers recruited 111 adults between the ages of 18 and 65 to participate in a 14-week study.

The study took place between Thanksgiving and the day after New Years’ Day. Half the participants—the intervention group, were asked to weigh themselves daily on scales that provided

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