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U.S. Department of Agriculture

Cure for Super Bowl Sunday pig-out? A healthy Monday

Kim Painter
Special to USA TODAY
If you end up in front of a spread like this on Super Bowl Sunday, chances are you are going to eat a few excess calories. People who can get back to healthy habit Monday, though, probably won't do a lot of damage to their waistlines.

It's Super Bowl Sunday, the day millions of healthy-eating resolutions go down in a blaze of hot wings, nachos and dip.

You can try to limit the damage — with veggie sticks, salsa and such — but let's just say there's going to be some damage.

So here's what to do: Wake up Monday morning, wipe those tortilla chip crumbs from your lips and start over. People who are able to restart healthy habits on Monday — not just after Super Bowl overeating but after any weekend binge — have discovered one big secret to maintaining those habits, health experts say.

"Monday is always a fresh start. It's a mini New Years. It's the January of the week," says Morgan Johnson, director of research and program development at the Monday Campaigns, a non-profit organization devoted to the Monday reset idea. The group is affiliated with Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Syracuse Universities.

The initiative started in 2003 with the popular Meatless Monday campaign. It now promotes causes including exercise (Move it Monday), smoking cessation (Quit and Stay Quit Monday), male sexual health (Man Up Monday), and all-around healthy living (Healthy Monday). Next up: a Monday 2000 campaign to raise awareness of daily calorie needs (about 2000, on average), so that consumers can make better use of calorie counts on menus and food labels.

This is the Meatless Monday brochure from The Mondays Campaigns promoting ways to get back on the healthy diet  track after cheating weekends.

Research suggests people are especially open to health messages on Mondays: It's the most popular day to start a diet, start exercising, quit smoking, schedule a medical appointment or search for health information online.

Research also suggests these Monday go-getters are getting somewhere: People who go to the gym on Mondays return to the gym more often than people who do not. And while the average person gains a little weight each weekend, people who succeed at losing weight over time are those who get right back on track every Monday, says Brian Wansink, a professor of consumer behavior at Cornell University.

"What predicts long term weight loss isn't what happened over the weekend, it's what happens Monday through Friday," says Wansink, whose most recent book is Slim by Design – Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life.

The scale tells the tale, Wansink says. In a year-long study of 80 adults, he and his colleagues found average participants weighed the most on Sunday nights and the least on Friday mornings.

People who lost weight did it by dropping more weight on weekdays than they gained on weekends. Weight gainers failed to compensate in the same way.

The findings do not mean people should starve themselves on Mondays or give themselves permission to "just go wacko" every weekend, Wansink says.

He says people eat more on weekends partly due to forces beyond their control: they get out of their usual routines and eat at restaurants, sporting events and other people's homes. On Mondays, people with good habits – such as eating "reasonable meals" and snacking on the fruit they keep on their kitchen counters — get back to those habits, he says.

If you don't have such good habits, Mondays are great day to start, says Lawrence Cheskin, director of a weight management center at Johns Hopkins.

"If you truly have made a fresh start on Monday, you've created something you can carry through forever. But if it only lasts until Tuesday, maybe next week, you'll make it to Wednesday," he says. "Eventually, it becomes second nature."

Until it does, Cheskin says, It is counterproductive to look at the scale Monday morning and give in to "all or nothing thinking… to think 'I've blown it now and I might as well keep going.' "

About those Super Bowl calories

So how many calories might you have to make up for after today's festivities?

According the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we eat more on Super Bowl Sunday than on any day of the year besides Thanksgiving. The Calorie Control Council, a food industry group, says a typical game day feast could easily surpass 2,400 calories, including:

• 596 for 2 slices of pepperoni pizza

• 458 for 3 cans of regular beer

• 570 for 6 fried hot wings with bleu cheese dip

• 465 for 3 servings of potato chips

• 430 for 1 serving of beef nachos

Two tips from the council: hit the veggie tray first, to fill up a bit, and have a drink of water between every beer or soda.

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