The irony is that to prevent holiday weight gain, if you are not following a low carbohydrate (less than 20 grams
of carbohydrate per day) diet, you have to restrict your fat calories. But if you are on a low carbohydrate diet,
fat calories are generally not a problem. Holiday weight gain comes from a combination of carbohydrate calories
and fat calories. Carbohydrate calories drive fat storage, and fat calories contain 9 calories per gram (compared
to 4 calories per gram for protein and carbohydrate calories) so they put on pounds in the presence of
carbohydrate. If you are going to eat carbohydrates over the holidays, you can generally prevent weight gain by
either limiting your carbohydrate intake to 50 grams per day, or just freely feed on carbohydrates 1 day a
week. If you do anything else, you are going to have to consciously restrict your fat calories to prevent holiday
weight gain. 50%-75% of the calories in egg nog, cake, cookies, pie, ice cream, candy and pastry come from
fat. If you make low fat choices of these treats, you can save 50% on calories. Low fat, fake foods are no
where as good or as satisfying as the real thing, which is why I strongly recommend just counting and limit your
carb intake to 50 grams a day, or eat whatever carbs you want just 1 day a week.