2005 Holiday Challenge

The Lean Plate Club Holiday Challenge kicks off on Tuesday, Nov. 22 and runs through New Year's Day. As always, the challenge is not about dieting or trying to lose weight. What fun would that be? Plus, it's no surprise that the holiday season is a difficult time of year to vow to change your life and lose pounds.

What research shows is that people at a healthy weight put on about a pound during the holidays. No big deal, right? But overweight people and that's now 66 percent of us put on about five pounds. This is the bad part: they don't take those pounds off in the spring. So it's five pounds this year, five pounds next. You get the idea.

The Holiday Challenge is designed to counter that trend by simply keeping the bathroom scale steady from Thanksgiving to Jan. 1. If you can accomplish that, you'll be a step ahead of the game when you celebrate the beginning of 2006. So we hope you'll join us on the Holiday Challenge. Watch this space and the free weekly Lean Plate Club e-mail newsletter for tips, charts and other resources to help in your efforts.