The holiday season is here — which means the seasonal desserts are here, too.

Apple crisp, pumpkin pie, and dark chocolate fudge can all pack on the pounds. And with the colder weather, it may be harder to get outside and keep up your exercise.

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In the new year ahead, you could be making the same resolution you did last year to follow a healthier diet.

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But increasing the fiber in some of your meals may help you offset, and even avoid, some of the holiday weight gain.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts in Boston compared the weight loss of two groups of people — those who followed the complicated dietary guidelines from the American Heart Association and those who simply increased their daily intake of fiber.

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The study involved 240 adults who were at risk for Type 2 diabetes. Those who followed the AHA diet had to keep track of 13 different dieting rules, including eating more fruits and vegetables, choosing lean proteins, reducing sugar and salt consumption, drinking little or no alcohol, and balancing the ratios of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.

Increasing the fiber in some of your meals may help you offset — and even avoid — holiday weight gain.

The people in the other group simply had to increase the amount of fiber in their diet to 30 grams each day.

Average weight loss after six months for the AHA dieters was six pounds; the high-fiber dieters had lost a little more than four pounds. While the AHA diet produced more dramatic weight loss, the high-fiber diet produced comparable results and was much simpler to follow.

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“We found that people in the fiber group in our study actually made some unintentional changes to their diets, including reduced sugar, saturated fat, and sodium intake,” Sherry Pagoto, a professor of medicine in the division of preventive and behavioral medicine at UMass and co-author on the study, told LifeZette.

High-fiber foods aren’t usually packed with loads of other unhealthy ingredients, Pagoto said.

“By making this one change, the whole diet shifted in a healthier direction,” she said.

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Fiber packs a nutritious punch. Aside from the well-known benefits of a healthy colon, fiber also attaches to cholesterol particles and takes them out of the body, reducing cholesterol levels and improving heart health. Fiber also produces a slow metabolic burn and avoids the high-sugar spikes that can put you at risk for diabetes or heart disease. The slow sugar burn keeps you feeling full for longer.

High-fiber meals mean that you eat less as well.

“High-fiber foods provide people with feelings of increased satiety more than low-fiber foods. So people often eat less and feel satisfied. Also, high-fiber foods are energy dense—fewer calories for the same volume of food,” Annalise Shumway, a clinical dietitian for Healthcare Services Group in Boston, Massachusetts, told LifeZette.

Shumway and Pagoto gave some easy tips for how to add fiber to your diet:

  • Swap out your white bread for whole wheat bread.
  • Add flax, chia seeds, quinoa, barley, or dried fruit to your salads.
  • Put some berries or raisins in your oatmeal.
  • Munch on popcorn instead of chips for a snack.
  • Mix in some canned pumpkin into your favorite vegetable stew.
  • Make your own trail mix with nuts, high-fiber cereal, and dried fruit such as cherries or figs.
  • Choose whole grain crackers or veggies and hummus as a snack.
  • Replace the juice in your diet with actual fruit. If you like orange juice with breakfast, try eating a whole orange instead.

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  • Incorporate beans, whole wheat noodles, brown rice, and other high-fiber foods into your dinner recipes.
  • Experiment with high-fiber desserts, such as chia seed pudding, chickpea blondies, and black bean brownies.

There are other simple swaps that could bring more fiber into your diet as well. You could drink coffee instead of juice. If you like iceberg lettuce, try romaine instead. And for Thanksgiving dinner, make your mashed potatoes with the skins still on—the skins carry most of the potato nutrients anyway.

Don’t worry too much about the holiday weight gain. Increase the amount of fiber you eat each day and you may come through the holiday season unscathed. You may even be surprised by a little weight loss.