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During the holiday season, the festivities and food can take a toll on one's diet and waistline. Due to the fact that people are often more preoccupied during these times of the year, remembering to stick to a diet plan or putting time aside to exercise can be difficult. However, instead of packing on the pounds during this holiday season, here are five ways to keep the calories off.
1. Intensify Christmas Shopping

Before Christmas rolls round the corner, people should avoid online shopping and physically go to malls and shopping centers. By buying presents in store, people would have to walk around the mall carrying bags. Furthermore, standing for a few hours while shopping can help keep some calories off. It is also good to plan ahead and decide how you might want to tackle the mall. Bring along healthy snacks in order to avoid eating the unhealthy options at the mall. An extra tip of advice: use your bags as dumbbells when waiting on a long line.
2. Use Snow to Your Advantage

Snowing during this time is inevitable in some of the regions of the world. When it does snow, people should use snow to their advantage. Playing in the snow, such as sledding, building snowmen and having a fun snowball fight can help burn calories. Sledding at moderate intensity can actually burn off around 238 calories. Being active in the snow can increase heart rate. Aside from playing in the snow, shoveling out driveways and streets can help burn off those calories as well.
3. Cleaning

Even though cleaning can be tedious and boring, it is a great way to get people on their feet and off the couch. During the holiday season, cleaning, whether it is light sweeping or intense scrubbing, can get people relatively active. Instead of relaxing in front of a television right after a big meal, clean up the mess that is often left behind during huge festive gatherings. According to TIME, general to intense house cleaning for about an hour burns a little less than 200 calories.
4. Hosting a Party

Not everyone would volunteer to host a holiday party. Not only can hosting a party be stressful, hosting can also be extremely time-consuming. However, despite the downsides of hosting a party, hosts generally will burn more calories than guest. People who host parties actually perform a lot if physical activity. For example, cooking and prepping for an hour burns around 160 calories. Walking around socializing and then cleaning up after the party has finished can burn anywhere from 200 to 300 calories per hour.
5. Taking a Walk

Despite cold temperatures, one of the best ways to exercise during the wintertime is to take a walk. Since the weather is so cold, people would be inclined to walk faster, which burns more calories. Taking a walk, especially after a big meal can help maintain one's weight. Furthermore, taking a walk with family or friends can boost people's spirits as well.

These are just five ways people can be active during the holidays without actually going to the gym.