By Kevin McKeever

Can't Weight for the Holidays to End

By now, you've been stuffed to the gills with helpful advice about how to avoid stuffing yourself to the gills with food and drink this holiday season. In my experience, no matter how reasonable the advice sounds in theory, its execution is much trickier to pull off.

As an example, let's review these quite reasonable suggestions offered by a nutritional expert from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston:

"Before going to a holiday party, eat a light snack. Arriving hungry often results in overindulging. Also, offer to bring your favorite healthier choice dish to ensure that you have good food options."

Eating before you go some place where the food is prepared, plentiful and free, to me, is wrong on so many levels. First, it violates my devotion to the religion of being lazy and cheap. Next, your host probably has been slaving for weeks to think of tasty, exotic dishes to please your palate. He or she has spent countless hours and dollars to make you -- the honored guest -- happy. And this is how you treat your host? "No, no -- your food is evil! Simply evil! I shan't eat anything but these peeled baby carrots I picked up at Shaw's." You callous crudités!

"Don't hang out near the food. Proximity increases temptation."

But be prepared. It gets cold and lonely out in the garage. Even if it does have a beer fridge. Trust me.

"Practice good portion control. Fill your dinner plate with half vegetables, a quarter protein and a quarter carbs."

Of course, there's a good chance that all the above items are floating like icebergs in a sea of butter, cheese, gravy and/or ranch dressing. Then, well, you're screwed.

"As for desserts, choose only those you like the most and have smaller portions."

Unless, of course, you've had to skip all the dinner items treading in butter, cheese, gravy and/or ranch dressing. In that case, you can meet the above-mentioned vegetable, protein and carb ratio with a mother-heaping slice of carrot cake. Dress it with a few of those peeled babies you brought from Shaw's, you creep.

"Enjoy just a small cup of apple cider, eggnog or the like, then balance it off with lots of water to help curb your appetite."

If you can’t hit the brakes at "small," make sure you drink from the heaviest mugs and cups available. Wrist curls work off those unwanted calories like a jumbo diet Pepsi negates consumption of movie concession-stand snacks. I looked it up. And, unfortunately, water in this context doesn't include the bubbly ones mixed with your holiday spirits. Nor the ice cubes.

"Eat once, not all night. Grazing at the food table quickly piles up the calories."

At this point in the list, you should be thinking you'd be better off staying home with the bag of peeled baby carrots. Then people will start to think you're unfriendly and rude, and you'll never be invited to another party. Then you'll never gain holiday weight. Problem solved! To celebrate, YOU decide to throw a party …

"When hosting a holiday party, give away your leftovers."

You'll have tons of leftovers. That's because all your guests will have read articles about how not to put on weight during the holidays and ate nothing you prepared. A massive fight will follow in which your rail-thin guests will accuse you, their stick-figured host, of trying to make them fat. You'll pummel each other with bags of peeled baby carrots, making the distributor for Shaw's rich enough that he'll finally be able to hire his own full-time nutritionist and trainer.

So, friends, that's it -- you're on your own this season. Have yourself a healthy holiday. I'll be in the garage.