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Ridding Holiday Weight Gain

By Beacon Staff

Holiday weight gain is a simple fact of life. Eat extra cookies, drink a little more champagne, and down chocolates. Share extra rich meals with friends and family, and the pounds creep on. Some reports have suggested that the average person gains up to 10 pounds between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

But last March, the New England Journal of Medicine called those figures into question. New studies show that the average holiday weight gain is just one pound.

But that one pound rarely comes back off.

To pull off one pound of fat takes burning 3,500 calories. Just an hour of exercise can whack away at the fat.

Pull out the Nordic skis for a spin at Round Meadows, Stillwater Mountain Lodge Nordic, Glacier Nordic Center at the golf course, or Whitefish Mountain Resort. With recent snows, all the areas are open. In an hour, you’ll burn about 563 calories skiing at a moderate pace. For the same calorie burn, strap on the snowshoes for a walk in deep snow.

Downhill skiing at Whitefish Mountain Resort burns a little less. Provided you aren’t standing in long holiday lift lines, you can burn around 422 calories per hour. An hour of ice skating at Stumptown Ice Den can burn 493 calories, depending on whether you just glide around leisurely or make it a workout.

You can work off the fat at the Wave. Walking on a treadmill can burn 200 – 350 calories per hour and swimming 300 – 500 calories. While weight lifting might expend energy, the exercise only eats up about 211 calories per hour.

If all else fails, grab your shovel to clear the snow off your driveway. One hour of shoveling snow can burn 422 calories. That’s using a shovel…not a snowblower.