As we enter the holiday season and festive period, I am reminded of a Journal of Physiology study published in 2013 by a group of researchers from the University of Bath in the U.K. (2). The results of this study have relevance to all of us at this time of year; whether we are training for an upcoming competition or event, or just for our health and wellness.

It is well-documented that brief periods of overfeeding - that is, consuming many more calories than we expend in our metabolism – can have negative consequences for our metabolic health. For instance, short periods of overfeeding, much as we might see over the holiday period, have been shown to impair insulin sensitivity (3) and have effects on things like adipose tissue gene expression (1). I don’t bring this up to scare you into boycotting Christmas dinner; relaxing and enjoying the holidays is a great opportunity to blow off a little of the steam that has built up in this most challenging of years. Whilst those...