<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11346-2003Nov24.html">Making This Holiday Season a Leaner One (washingtonpost.com)</a>: “Research suggests that two keys to weight maintenance are getting on the scale and tracking food intake and physical activity. ‘Self-monitoring and being accountable is something that we can’t say enough about,’ notes Joan Conway, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Human Nutrition Research Center. ‘It’s about managing your choices instead of just allowing the food to manage you. With just a little pre-planning, you can go almost anywhere and have almost anything to eat.’
“It’s that kind of planning and attention to detail that helps thwart holiday weight gain. Just jotting down what you eat — even if you don’t calculate exactly how many calories are included — helps reduce over consumption.
“‘Lots of studies suggest that the very act of recording food is going to help people make better choices about what they eat,’ notes [Jack Yanovski, head of the growth and obesity epidemic unit at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development], author of a 2000 study of holiday eating published in the New England Journal of Medicine. ‘Paying attention to what goes into your mouth helps you make active decisions about eating that you might not otherwise think about, like passing a desk and mindlessly picking up a piece of candy as you go by.’”
No fixed plans. Not intent upon arriving.