TL;DR: You don’t need to white-knuckle your way through the holidays. Kraken Fitness trainers in Burnaby, BC break down five behavior-based strategies that keep your progress intact without ruining the fun. Move a little every day, front-load protein, be strategic about alcohol, track something simple, and design your holiday plates around foods you actually love.
Why People Gain Weight Over the Holidays
Here’s what Kraken Fitness trainers in North Burnaby, near Brentwood, see every single year. A client is making solid progress through October and November. Training consistently, nutrition dialed in, feeling good. Then the holidays hit. They take a few days off. The big dinners start. Structure disappears. And somewhere between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, weeks of hard work just… evaporates.
The average North American gains anywhere from 5 to 15 pounds over the holiday season. That’s not because people are weak or lazy. It’s because the holidays strip away the structure that was making everything work. You’re off your regular schedule. Food is everywhere. Social pressure to eat and drink ramps up. And once you miss a few workouts, the “screw it” mentality kicks in.
That all-or-nothing thinking is the real problem. Setting the bar at “I’m going to train five days a week and stay strict on my diet” during the busiest social season of the year is a setup for failure. When you inevitably miss a day or two, you feel like you’ve blown it, so you stop trying altogether. And by mid-January, you’re starting from scratch wondering what happened.
Kraken’s coaches take the opposite approach. Instead of pushing harder during the holidays, they actually pull clients back. No fat loss phases through December. More calories, not fewer. The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is to come out the other side without losing ground. Here are five strategies that make that happen.
1. Incorporate Fitness Into Your Holiday Activities
The fix is not a rigid gym schedule through December. It’s weaving movement into what you’re already doing.
Nobody is saying you need to be swinging kettlebells in the snow (though if that’s your thing, go for it). The idea is simpler than that. You’re already going to be doing holiday activities. Make some of them active. Take the family out for a walk to look at Christmas lights. Shovel the driveway. Go sledding with the kids. Build a snowman. All of that counts. You’re burning calories and getting your body moving without it feeling like a workout.
Then sprinkle in some real training where it makes sense. You’re probably not going to the gym on Christmas Day. Fine. But Boxing Day? That morning is wide open for most people. Plan a session, burn off some of those extra calories, and keep the momentum going. Even two workouts a week through the holidays is enough to hold onto your progress.
The mistake Kraken’s trainers see over and over is the all-or-nothing approach. Someone who was training four days a week decides they can’t maintain that, so they drop to zero. The whole point of this strategy is to reject that binary. Some movement is always better than no movement. A 20-minute walk after dinner is better than sitting on the couch with eggnog watching football.
Don’t let bad habits snowball. A couple of missed days doesn’t have to turn into two missed weeks.
2. Plan Your Meals Ahead of Time
You know the big dinners are coming. Christmas, New Year’s, holiday parties. They’re on the calendar. So plan around them instead of pretending they won’t happen.
The strategy is straightforward. If you know a big dinner is happening in the evening, front-load your day with protein. Eat lighter meals earlier. Have a high-protein breakfast or lunch so you’re not starving when the turkey and potatoes hit the table. You’re giving yourself a calorie budget for the evening by being intentional about the rest of the day.
And if you do overeat at a big dinner? Don’t panic. Just eat less the next day. You’ll probably wake up not that hungry anyway. Skip breakfast. Have a lighter lunch. Your body is naturally telling you it doesn’t need more fuel right now. Listen to it instead of force-feeding yourself out of routine.
What Kraken’s coaching team actually does with clients is more sophisticated. Starting in early December, they transition clients out of any fat loss phase and slowly increase calories week by week. Think of it like progressive training, but for your metabolism. By the time the holiday week arrives, your body has adjusted to eating more food over time instead of getting slammed with a sudden spike.
The worst move? Crash dieting in November to fit into a dress for New Year’s Eve. Eating 1,200 calories a day and then hitting an unlimited buffet on December 24th. That’s how people gain 10 pounds in a week and end up worse than where they started. A slow, planned increase in calories is always going to beat restriction followed by a binge.
3. Manage Alcohol Consumption
Alcohol is sneaky during the holidays. It’s not just the calories in the drinks themselves. It’s everything that happens after.
Getting drunk once isn’t going to wreck your progress. But drinking on multiple consecutive days? That stacks up fast. The calories compound. Your sleep quality tanks. Your HRV drops and can take a week or two to recover. And when you’re hungover, the first thing your body craves is salt and fat. So now you’re eating a second dinner at 11 PM or waking up and going straight for greasy leftovers.
Kraken’s coaches recommend picking your days. If you’re going to drink, choose specific occasions. Christmas Eve. New Year’s Eve. Maybe one holiday party. Then on those days, stick to one or two drinks. On all the other days, stay at zero. That’s a very different pattern than having “just a couple” every night for two weeks straight.
If you are going to have some drinks, a few things help. Drink earlier in the evening rather than later so your sleep isn’t as disrupted. Hydrate aggressively the next day. And plan for the fact that you’re going to want to eat more the following morning. That’s biology, not weakness. Your body is dehydrated and looking for calories and salt. Knowing that in advance means you can make a better choice about what you reach for.
The real damage from holiday drinking isn’t one big night. It’s the chain reaction. Drinks lead to bad sleep. Bad sleep leads to cravings. Cravings lead to poor food choices. Poor food choices lead to guilt. And guilt leads to more drinks. Break the chain by being intentional about when you drink and when you don’t.
4. Track Something and Stay Consistent
Maintenance is a win. Read that again. If you get through the holidays and you’re the same weight you were going in, that’s a genuine victory. Kraken’s coaches don’t expect clients to make progress through December. They expect them to hold the line.
The single best tool for holding the line is dead simple: step on the scale every morning. That’s it. You don’t need to track macros. You don’t need to log every meal. Just weigh yourself. Because that one number gives you a daily reality check. If you ate a pile of food last night and the scale shows it, you’ll naturally course-correct today. That feedback loop is everything.
The problem most people have is they step on the scale December 1st, then avoid it until mid-January. By then the damage is done and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’ve lost two weeks of data and two weeks of opportunities to make small adjustments.
If you want to track more, great. Log your meals on the days it’s easy and skip the days it’s not. Track your water. Track your steps. The point isn’t perfection. The point is staying connected to your goals so they don’t disappear in a fog of holiday chaos.
The reason this works is psychological. When you’re tracking, you’re present. You’re making conscious choices. When you stop tracking, you slip into autopilot. And autopilot during the holidays means eating whatever’s in front of you and hoping for the best.
Months of progress can disappear in two or three weeks. That’s not an exaggeration. But a daily weigh-in keeps you grounded. It’s not about the number being perfect. It’s about never losing awareness of where you stand.
5. Design Your Holiday Plate
This one is the most practical tip on the list and probably the one that makes the biggest difference at actual holiday meals.
Here’s the approach: build your plate around protein and your favorite foods. Skip everything else. If there’s bread on the table and you can eat bread any day of the year, don’t waste plate space on it. Fill that space with the turkey, the ham, the roast beef. Those are high-protein, nutrient-dense, and they’ll keep you full. Then add small portions of the holiday-specific foods you actually love. Grandma’s stuffing. Your aunt’s special dessert. Whatever actually makes the holidays special for you.
Skip the veggies at the holiday dinner. Seriously. You can eat vegetables tomorrow. Tonight, use that plate real estate for the things you genuinely look forward to all year.
And always plan for dessert. If you have a sweet tooth and you know the pumpkin pie is coming, account for it. Eat a slightly smaller main course so you have room. That’s a much better strategy than eating a huge dinner, telling yourself you won’t have dessert, and then caving and eating three slices because you tried to resist.
The whole philosophy here is enjoyment without destruction. Nobody at Kraken Fitness is telling you to bring a Tupperware container of chicken and broccoli to your family’s Christmas dinner. That’s absurd. Enjoy the food. Enjoy the people. Just be strategic about it. Pick the foods that actually matter to you, prioritize protein, and let go of the stuff you wouldn’t miss.
One more thing: fruitcake is never worth it. That’s not a nutrition tip. That’s just a fact.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much weight do people typically gain over the holidays?
The average ranges from 5 to 15 pounds, depending on how long the holiday period lasts and how far off-track things go. Most of that weight is a combination of excess calories, water retention from higher carb and sodium intake, and reduced physical activity. The good news is that with a few simple strategies, you can get through the season at the same weight you started.
Should I try to lose fat during the holidays?
Kraken’s trainers actually pull clients out of fat loss phases heading into December. Trying to restrict calories while surrounded by holiday food is a recipe for the binge-restrict cycle. A better goal is maintenance. Hold steady through the holidays, then push into fat loss in January when your routine and structure are back. Maintenance through the holidays is a legitimate win.
How much does alcohol affect fitness progress?
More than most people think, and not just because of the calories. Alcohol disrupts sleep quality, drops HRV for up to one to two weeks, increases next-day cravings for salty and fatty food, and lowers your willpower around food choices. The calories in the drinks are actually the smaller problem. The chain reaction of bad sleep, cravings, and poor decisions the next day is where the real damage happens.
What’s the easiest thing to track during the holidays?
Your weight. Step on the scale every morning. It takes five seconds, it keeps you aware of where you stand, and it gives you a daily feedback loop. You don’t need to track macros or log every meal through the holidays. Just that one daily number is enough to prevent the slow drift that turns into a 10-pound surprise in January.
How do I eat healthy at holiday dinners without being that person?
You don’t need to bring your own food or refuse everything on the table. Build your plate around protein first (turkey, ham, roast beef), add small portions of your favorite holiday-specific dishes, and skip the stuff you could eat any day of the year. Plan for dessert by eating a smaller main course. Enjoy the meal. Just be intentional about what goes on the plate.
Ready to Start the New Year Strong?
If the holidays took more than you planned, or if you just want a coach in your corner heading into the new year, Kraken Fitness in North Burnaby offers a free week trial. No commitment. No pressure. Just real coaching to see if it’s the right fit.
Listen to the Full Episode
This blog post is based on Episode 6 of the Kraken Power Podcast: “5 Ways to Stay Dialed In For The Holidays.”
