05:29 PM CST on Monday, December 19, 2005

By Janice Williamson / KHOU-TV

'Tis the season to overindulge. Too much to eat and drink can add up to too many pounds.

KHOU

By the new year, a lot of us will turn to holiday dieting to make up for the all the good times.

Grant Cooper is already ahead of the curve.

"Keep the stress level down," he says while burning up calories on the treadmill.

Cooper is trying to work out more often instead of less this holiday season.

"A lot of people do crash diets. I don't think that works. You're not really changing your lifestyle," Cooper said. "You're just faking your body out -- doing a diet for a month. Better off working out a little bit more and eat what you want."

Come January a lot of people will decide to try a low-carb or low-fat diet. Working out at the gym will also be part of their New Year's Resolution.

A personal trainer can go a long way in helping keep the weight off and helping you focus on changing your lifestyle.

"They know they're going to eat the pecan pie so, for some reason, if they can't follow the diet they stop working out altogether," explained Skip Fell, a personal trainer. "And I encourage my clients to eat and drink whatever you want, but keep lifting weights and working out."

Fitness and nutrition experts say almost any diet can be successful short-term but finding a healthy lifestyle is the better solution long-term.

"It takes 20 minutes of exercise to equal 100 calories," said Molly Gee, a registered dietician with the Baylor College of Medicine.

Gee is a proponent of New Year's dieting but she encourages patients to be realistic.

"It's a simple energy balance equation --calories in versus calories burned," explained Gee.

That means moving more in order to weigh less.