CHARLES TOWN — With big slabs of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, egg nog and sugar cookies at Christ­mas and free-flow­ing champagne and hors d’oeuvres on New Year’s Eve, it’s hardly a surprise that most of us gain weight this time of year.

But thanks to Jef­ferson County’s in­creasingly popular “Maintain, Don’t Gain” program, dozens of Panhandle residents will manage to get through the holidays without putting on a single extra pound.

“This isn’t a weight loss program,” explained Lisa Dunn, a supervisor at the Jefferson County Health De­partment who helped launch “Main­tain” three years ago.  “There is absolutely no pressure to lose even a pound.  The idea is just to help people get through the holidays without gain­ing any more.”

The program — free to residents and operated on a minimal budget with donations from area gyms and other businesses — easily could be adapted elsewhere in West Vir­ginia or even offered statewide, said Dunn, who moved to Jefferson County at age 6 from nearby Grant County.

“It’s a pretty simple program,” Dunn said. “You come in before Thanks­giving and get weighed and then you come in again after January 2 and get weighed again.  Just knowing that you have that weigh-in ahead of you helps to make you conscious of how much you’re eating and how much you’re ex­ercising.

“In the summer, you might walk right past the candy jar on your co­worker’s desk, but this time of year it’s tempting to say.  ‘Oh, it’s the holidays.’  It becomes an easy excuse and you end up gaining weight.”

The idea for “Maintain” came from another West Virginian, Johanna Biola, a West Virginia Univer­sity medical student from Randolph County.

Three years ago, as a third-year resident at a health clinic in Harpers Ferry, Biola completed a community service requirement by working with Healthier Jefferson County, a non­profit coalition that promotes ways county residents can improve their health.

West Virginia, she noted, has the nation’s third-highest obesity rate — and the country as a whole is getting fatter.

Biola said she wasn’t sure at first how to approach the problem.  “Fortu­nately I found an article in a March 2000 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that found that 51 percent of (a person’s) annual weight gain oc­curred during the six-week period be­tween Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day and that the weight was not lost during the remainder of the year,” Biola said.

The authors of the study, published in 2000, concluded that this cycle of holiday weight gain happening year after year contributed greatly to American adults’ ever-larger waist­bands.

Biola had helped organize a “Make Time for Fitness” community program in her hometown of Elkins.  She used that knowledge in setting up Jeffer­son’s program, which the first year bore a name that was something of a mouthful: “Give the Gift of a Healthier You.”

What has surprised me about ‘Maintain Don’t Gain’ is that by en­couraging weight maintenance dur­ing the holidays many participants have actually lost weight,” she said.  “Both years, 80 to 83 percent of partici­pants who returned for the weigh-outs had successfully maintained or lost weight.”

Three hundred or more Panhandle residents are expected to sign up for the free program before the Nov. 23, deadline.

Participants can complete their Initial weigh-in at the health depart­ment, Harpers Ferry Family Medi­cine Center or any of five health clubs in Jefferson County that are sponsors of “Maintain, Don’t Gain” — the Clarion Health Spa and Fitness Center in Shepherdstown, Gold’s Gym in Charles Town, the Charles Town Athletic Club or Curves, ei­ther in Shepherdstown or Charles Town.

Beyond good health and pants that still fit, “Maintain” dangles several other attractive incentives before participants.  Those at the same weight or less when they step on the scale the first week of January will be eligible to attend a Jan. 9 celebration at the Clar­ion Hotel & Conference Center

Guests at the party will take home prizes, including sporting goods, month-long memberships to area health clubs and gift certificates for restaurant meals and spa treat­ments.

Panhandle residents aren’t left to figure out how to stave off holiday weight gain on their own.  The wel­come packet handed out when a per­son signs up for “Maintain” offers tips for cutting calories and fat, boosting activity levels, keeping to an exer­cise schedule, questions to ask before selecting a weight-loss program and other assistance.

Thanks to the West Virginia Uni­versity Extension Service in Jef­ferson County this year’s “Maintain” participants will get a newsletter filled with nutrition information and tips mailed to their homes each week of the program.

Two WVU med students — Ashlee Baker and Andrea Davis — will work on the newsletter with help from Pan­handle-based extension agent Judy Matlick and nutrition outreach instructor Cornelia Hockman.

Exercise is another important facet of “Maintain.”  Women who sign up for the program get passes good for a week at each of the participating fit­ness centers while men get passes to all but the women-only Curves.  The welcome packet includes schedules for each gym’s group workouts, rang­ing from Tae-Kwon-Do, water aerobics and yoga to Pilates, step aerobics and cycling.

“The gyms love this program be­cause it gets people in the doors where they can see what each gym has to offer,” Dunn said.

In 2003, 113 people started the pro­gram and last year, enrollment in “Maintain” doubled.

“This year before we even started advertising the program we had people calling and asking if we were going to offer the program again this year, said the 42-year-old Dunn, who re­cently lost more than 70 pounds and now works part-time as a Weight Watchers regional trainer.

“The program runs itself now that it’s established,” Dunn said.  “This year our health department is kick­ing in $500 so that everyone who takes part gets a water bottle, but it’s basi­cally a no-budget program that works because of the generosity of local busi­nesses.

“There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind this would be a great program for the whole state.”