There has been a belief for as long as I can remember that the average person gains a lot weight over the holidays. There is a health club in my town that always puts up a sign saying the average weight gain is 13 pounds! Fortunately, it seems that is an exaggeration. Several recent studies have shown most people gain 1 pound over the holidays. People that are already overweight gain on average 5 lbs. The alarming trend, however, is that much of this weight NEVER comes off. You can see that a lifetime of these small holiday weight gains can lead to obesity in a hurry. There is now scientific evidence that an occasional pig out not only won't sabotage your weight loss efforts, but actually can help! You've probably heard that restricting food intake slows your metabolism down and its true. Your body goes into "starvation mode" when you diet, causing you to create fat storage hormones. Send your body the signal that there is plenty of food once in a while can actually speed up metabolism by creating fat burning hormones.