I Ate My Thanksgiving Favorites for 6 Days… and Lost 1.1 Pounds of Fat.

This isn’t a diet story. It’s a data story, and proof that most of what we call “holiday weight gain” is nothing more than water.

For as long as I can remember, the holiday season has come with a built-in assumption: we’re all going to gain weight. It’s treated like a universal truth, as predictable as the Thanksgiving parade or a last-minute run to the grocery store. People talk about “holiday weight gain” the way they talk about traffic, inevitable, annoying, and totally outside their control.

But this year, I decided to put that belief to the test.

Not by dieting.
Not by restricting.
Not by “being good” or pretending I didn’t want the leftovers.

But by doing something simple and radical:

I ate my real Thanksgiving favorites for six straight days, including seconds and thirds, and I documented every single change in my body using a professional body composition scale.

Water.
Muscle.
Fat.
Total weight.

All of it.
No hiding.
No adjusting.
No skipping the days when the number jumped.

I wanted to see what actually happens to a real human body, my body, during the biggest eating weekend of the year.

And what I discovered shocked even me… not because of what went up, but because of what didn’t.

The truth is, holiday weight fear is so deeply ingrained that people panic before the mashed potatoes even hit the table. They start telling themselves the story weeks in advance:

“I’m going to gain weight. It’s just what happens.”
“It’s the holidays, I’ll fix it in January.”
“Everything’s off the rails anyway, might as well go all in.”

That mindset doesn’t last a day. It lasts six weeks.
And it’s the six-week mindset, not Thanksgiving dinner, that leads to real fat gain.

So, I decided to show the difference.
Not tell it.
Show it.

Starting the day before Thanksgiving and ending the following Tuesday morning, I shared daily videos of my body composition check-ins on Instagram at @my_last_100_lbs water, muscle, fat, and weight, along with exactly what I was eating. Not a curated menu. Not “holiday healthy.” The real thing.

I also created two visual storyboards so people could see the shifts the way I do when I do body composition consultations.

The 6-Day Thanksgiving Watch” Grid

Here’s what happened.

On Wednesday, my baseline day, everything was neutral.

On Thanksgiving Day itself, after enjoying my favorite foods without holding back, my body weight went up… but my body fat went down. That alone tells a story most people never get to see because they never separate the numbers

The next day, after classic Thanksgiving leftovers (and yes, more than once), the scale jumped even higher. This is the moment where most people panic, swear they “gained six pounds in two days,” and mentally check out until January 1.

But the fat still didn’t go up.

Day after day, as my water and muscle shifted, sometimes dramatically, my fat held almost perfectly steady.

Then Tuesday came, the morning everything settled, and the truth revealed itself: after six days of eating real holiday food, I was down 1.1 pounds of body fat.

Not dieting.
Not restricting.
Not tricking the system.

Just eating my meals, enjoying my favorites, checking in daily, and staying conscious.

The wild scale swings?
That was the water.
The inflammation.
The sodium.
The glycogen.
The normal ways a body responds to joyful, abundant meals.

But none of it was fat.

“Just the Fat” 6-Day Visual

This is why people get so defeated during the holidays. They’re interpreting the scale without context. They’re seeing water and mistaking it for fat. They’re seeing inflammation and thinking it’s failure. They’re seeing a moment and thinking it’s destiny.

And when you believe you “blew it,” even though you didn’t, your brain goes right into the familiar December spiral:

“I’ll start over in January.”

 That’s the moment the real fat gain begins.
Not on Thanksgiving Day, but in the six weeks that follow unchecked.

The water weight? It comes on fast and leaves fast.
The fat? It comes on quietly when you’re no longer checking in.

That’s why this experiment mattered.
That’s why I documented it.
That’s why people are responding the way they are.

Because this is the first time many of them have ever seen proof that their bodies aren’t betraying them, the scale is simply speaking a language they were never taught.

And when you learn that language, water, muscle, fat, weight, your relationship with food changes. Your relationship with the holidays changes. Your relationship with yourself changes.

You stop panicking.
You stop spiraling.
You stop quitting.
You stop restarting your life every January.

You learn the difference between faux weight gain and real weight gain, and once you know the difference, you can stay the course on any plan, program, or protocol of your choice.

You don’t need a “perfect” holiday season.
You need a truthful one.

And the most powerful, liberating way to get that truth is simple:

Start using a body composition scale.

Not to lose weight before the New Year.
Not to fix anything.
Not to punish yourself.
But to understand what’s really happening inside your body so you can finally stop misinterpreting your own biology.

The holidays aren’t the problem.
The lack of clarity is.

If you want help learning this, you’re in the right place, because in the next few weeks, I’m releasing a quick-read guide on how to use your body composition scale the right “weigh.” It will teach you how to track, how to interpret, how to calm the holiday panic, and how to enter 2026 with more confidence, clarity, and momentum than ever before.

Be the first to get it.

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