Winter is the season for merry making, gift giving, family time, holiday partying and of course, all these lead to weight gaining. Much as you want to stay in shape until summer and spring roll around, this cold season leaves you no room for diet, exercise and keeping in shape.

For sure, you will all attribute the weight gain to the delicious foods, nonstop partying, binge drinking and festive mood but there is more to gaining weight in winter that you should know about. If you wish to avoid the dreaded weight gain during winter, here are some of the causes that you should know about.

1. It Is The Season Of Abundance.

If you haven’t noticed it, winter is the time for abundance. Food, money, resources, gifts, drinks– you name it, we have it! Before winter tends to be the season for scarcity but thanks to the holidays that take place during this season, we tend to have more money during winter. This is because the festive feeling has made everyone feel generous—your boss gives out bonuses, your parents give your more allowances, and even your friends give you gifts that you don’t even need. And since we have lots of money during this season, it is easier for us to eat whatever we want, and oftentimes, we opt for something that you can only enjoy during this season—holiday drinks, pies, and desserts.

2. Your Home Is Your Comfort Zone.

During winter, there are plenty of reasons why you would want to stay inside—the temperature is better, you do not need to put on layers of clothing just so you can feel comfortable, and everything you need is already in your home. So why would you want to go out and battle it out there with the snow, cold temperature and the blizzard? Because of this, you tend to hibernate; This means that you tend to exercise a bit less. And what happens when you combine little to no exercise with holiday eating? Yep, you got it—winter weight gain.

3. Too Much Travel Can Lead To Unwanted Pounds.

Since we have been given too many vacation days during the cold season, we take it as an opportunity to finally be able to travel. While this may seem like a good and harmless decision, too much traveling may affect your weight more than you think. How? Well, leading a life of travel may also equate to a sedentary lifestyle because you will tend to let your guard down against delicious and high caloric food. In addition to that, traveling means, you do not have the time for exercise. Don’t you ever stop and check how much you have gained after only a few days of traveling? Try it, and you will be amazed at how easily you rack up the pounds when you are in a foreign land.

4. Family Gatherings Can Be Quite Stressful.

Family gatherings are supposed to be all fun, nostalgic and exciting. But if you are headed to see the in-laws, that is an entirely different story. For sure, the topics of politics, how well you are doing, how your kids are doing at school are bound to be stressful, especially if your in-laws take every opportunity and everything you say as a chance to judge and criticize you. This will undoubtedly increase your stress levels, and as we all know, we tend to overeat and make unhealthy food choices when we are stressed out. So yeah, basically your bonding time with your in-laws may be one of the reasons for your winter weight gain.

5. Maybe Take a Look At Your Room’s Temperature?

During winter, we tend to crank up the thermostat and oftentimes, we sleep and stay in a room at a toasty 74 degrees. While this may seem comfortable for us, our body actually needs a lower temperature so that it can be able to burn more calories because it needs the energy to keep us warm. Being in a cold temperature may activate brown fat which is a type of fat that boosts our metabolism. So lower down the heat and do your body a favor!
Because of all these reasons, it may seem like avoiding weight gain during winter is quite the impossible. But the truth is, there are plenty of things that you can do to still stay in shape, maintain your health and even lose weight during the cold season. You just have to keep these causes in mind and find a way to work around it.