We have reached December and, with it, Christmas lights turn on and also a silent race that repeats itself every year. While company dinners, meetings with friends and family gatherings accumulate, thousands of people begin what we could call “the last sprint”: losing weight quickly before sitting down at the table at Christmas.
But behind this sprint There is a much more complex phenomenon. One that has social, emotional and biological roots, and that hides a perverse effect. Express diets teach the body to be more efficient in saving energy, which ends up causing us to regain it and sometimes even more after losing weight quickly.
The pre-Christmas sprint. Every December, an almost automatic reflex is activated, the feeling of having to “get there safely” to the holidays. The psychologist specialized in Eating Disorders (ED), Sara Bolo, He explained to us in Xataka that this phenomenon is not coincidental, but a pattern that repeats itself year after year. “Christmas is a special time, where we see family or friends again that we don’t see every day. And with that, comments about the body reappear: ‘I look thinner at you’, ‘you’ve gained weight’…” This dynamic, as common as it is harmful, multiplies aesthetic pressure and turns coexistence into a silent body examination.
Another ingredient is added to this context, the purposes that were not fulfilled. “We arrived in December with the idea of New Year, New Me that we announced in January – says Bolo – and the urgency appears to show that we have achieved something.” That mixture of self-demand and closure of the cycle pushes many people to make drastic decisions in a very short time.
One more factor. And it’s not just aesthetic pressure or frustration, there’s also anticipatory fear. According to Bolo, it is common for some people to restrict their diet in the weeks before, thinking that this way they “compensate” for Christmas meals in advance. “It becomes a defensive preparation. I don’t want them to tell me anything, I don’t want to feel guilty, so I start restricting before,” he details.
This urgency is exactly what dietitian-nutritionist Laura Jorge also observes, director of the centers that bear her name. Since your consultation, December always has the same profile, more requests for “quick fixes”, more promises of express weight loss and more anxiety. “Every year we see an increase in people looking to lose X kilos ‘before the holidays’. It is a very clear pattern,” he explained to us in an interview. Three elements are repeated: urgency, guilt and dichotomous thinking – “now I restrict myself, and at Christmas I will eat” -. What starts as a sprintBoth experts agree, it usually ends up being an emotional and metabolic trap.
The hidden enemy. Science explains it bluntly, when we subject the body to extreme and sudden caloric restriction, the body activates survival mechanisms, not weight loss. As Jorge details, the metabolism slows down, hunger increases, satiety decreases and the body begins to use muscle mass as a source of energy. This not only makes it difficult to maintain weight loss, but also reduces basal metabolic expenditure, making it easier for us to gain weight later.
Scientific research supports these observations. A study of New England Journal of Medicine showed thatafter losing weight, leptin—the satiety hormone—was still low and ghrelin—the hunger hormone—was still elevated even 12 months later, even though the person had already recovered part of their eating routine. The authors conclude that these adaptations create “a physiological environment that favors the recovery of what was lost.” In addition, the factor of genetics must be taken into account. A study from 2024 published in International Journal of Obesity points out that not everyone responds the same; some people, after repeated cycles, develop a greater risk of insulin resistance or visceral adiposity.
The other side. Rapid weight loss has an immediate emotional effect and makes it seem like a success. “You get on the scale, you see fewer kilos and you feel immediate euphoria,” admits Sara Bolo. But it is a mirage.
When the weight returns – as it usually does – the emotional collapse appears: guilt, frustration, shame, absolute thoughts (“I am a failure”, “I have no willpower”). Furthermore, the environment reinforces this dynamic because thinness is praised and gain is censored, even with “innocent” comments. This back and forth deteriorates self-esteem and fuels restrictive behaviors that, far from solving the problem, intensify it.
A door that is better not to open. “The restrictive diet is the first step of any eating disorder,” he says. the psychologist Rigid control, obsessive calorie counting, avoiding social meals, or classifying foods as good or bad are early signs. And Christmas is one of the moments where they manifest themselves the most.
Laura Jorge agrees: “In these weeks we see people who begin to talk obsessively about compensating, skipping meals or doing compulsive exercise. These are signs that should not be ignored.” The combination of aesthetic pressure, abundance of stimuli and comments can activate a latent ED or aggravate an existing one.
When the comment is “innocent”, it is not. Social responsibility is evident. The experts remember that comments as common as:
- “Oops, are you repeating yourself already?”
- “That’s good, you’re thinner.”
- “After these meals, tomorrow on a diet.”
Behind all these phrases, a thin laugh follows that for many sounds like a roar. And as experts say, they are not only unnecessary, but potentially harmful. “You have to take care of your language,” summarizes the nutritionist. “Do not congratulate people for losing weight, do not comment on their own or other people’s bodies, do not pressure them to eat or stop eating.” Aesthetic pressure often begins with a comment that seemed harmless.
So how can we accompany? For those who live Christmas meals with fear of losing control, the key is not in the plate, but in the environment. The psychologist Sara Bolo insists that accompany It does not mean guarding, but offering a safe space. His advice is to focus on the emotional, not on the food. This means avoiding glances or comments about what the person eats, asking how they feel and being available without pressuring. It also helps to avoid conversations about diets, compensations or bodies and, when possible, serve food on individual plates to reduce the anxiety that the visual abundance typical of these dates can generate. And remember a fundamental nuance: “Two specific meals do not change a body, but they can alter an emotional state.”
From nutrition, Laura Jorge proposes practical strategies to reduce the risk of binge eating. The first, do not arrive at events extremely hungry and maintain relatively stable meal times so as not to enter cycles of deprivation and overeating. It also recommends incorporating satiating foods throughout the day, avoiding using exercise as a form of punishment and abandoning the “all or nothing” mentality, one of the main reasons for eating disorders during these times.
The real one sprint What does it matter? Miracle diets promise visible results in record time, but what they don’t tell is their hidden cost: they teach the body to resist, not to change. They make you hungrier, more efficient at storing fat, more vulnerable to weight regain, and more emotionally tired.
Maybe the real one sprint not to arrive thin at Christmas, but to build a more compassionate environment and a kinder relationship with food and the body. Because, in the end, the miracle is not in the diets, but in abandoning the logic that sustains them.
Image | freepik
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