It's darn-near inevitable that we gain a bit of extra "insulation" during the Holidays. Between Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and just being with your family for the cold season, there's really no hope in trying to limit your food intake.
Fortunately, there may be a way to (at least partially) compensate for your new layer of wintertime blubber. A report from the U.S. National Library of Medicine shows that exercising before breakfast will help prevent the pounds from sticking to you quite so tenaciously. "This study for the first time shows that fasted training [exercising on an empty stomach] is more potent than fed training [exercising after eating] to facilitate adaptations in muscle and to improve whole-body glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity during hyper-caloric fat-rich diet."
With both groups on a diet that fed them 30% more calories and 50% more fat than is recommended, the group that ate after working out gained about twice as much weight as did the group that didn't.
Even if you can bring yourself to slam weights before you slam an omelet, you should still get moving: the Mayo Clinic says that exercise at any time of the day improves your mood, combats chronic disease, helps you sleep better, and (not surprisingly) manages your weight and boosts energy.
The bottom line: get moving, and don't use terrible green-and-red sweaters as an excuse to hide your unsightly dinner bulge.
--Brandon
Photo taken from this photostream and used with permission of a Creative Commons license.
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