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Pants Feeling Tight? Try a New Holiday Eating Strategy

November 30, 2010   6 Comments

The holiday season started with a BANG at my house. And, here we are on Tuesday feeling a bit snug.

Try a New Holiday Eating Strategy

My choices are:
1. Feel guilty for all the food I consumed.
2. Berate myself for losing control.
3. Move on.

I am choosing #3 because there is absolutely no point in feeling bad about yourself. It just leads to feeling WORSE about yourself.

And, many of my friends in the healthy blogging world are going to go ON and ON about avoiding holiday weight gain. On average, Americans gain 3 pounds over the holiday season.

My strategy: acceptance. I will gain 3 pounds this holiday season because there will be an endless supply of cookies, hot chocolate, egg nog, donuts, meat, mashed potatoes, etc. that I will not be able to avoid.

BUT, I will be proactive in trying to enjoy the treats of the holidays. My biggest eating dilemma is that I am on a "see" food diet. I see it and then I eat it. It doesn't even matter if it tastes good.

To combat my problem, I came up with the above video and strategy. The idea is to keep to the foods that I will enjoy and check in to be sure that I'm not just eating because there is a ton of food in my face.

I want to ENJOY the holidays, but I don't want to eat crap. For example, if I am approaching a holiday pot luck, I will choose the homemade cookies and not the packaged ones.

I look for things that taste the best and I don't feel guilty about indulging.

Do you have a holiday strategy that works? Please share.

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6 Comments:

I think you've come up with a great idea and very do~able! Thanks for sharing it!

LOVE the video and the holiday snacking smarts! Yup, I'm right there with you! No sense feeling bad and then worse b/c it's just wasted, psychic energy that could be applied to other, more enjoyable activities! I think my pocketbook prevention snack will be a handful of almonds (raw) and apricots. Fills me up when I REMEMBER the water! Thanks!

thanks for the cute video! i keep bumping into the idea about drinking water, i.e. two glasses before meals and perhaps even another glass after you've had your meal -- helps you make sure you're full before you go for seconds. i also remember reading something about how long it takes for your body to register fullness, so it's helpful to wait a little before having seconds, with or without the water. i did a blog entry a week or so ago, based on an article in SELF magazine about how men diet (as opposed to women). the gist of it was what men will make small changes (e.g. no chips before dinner) and feel good about what they accomplish, whereas some women will make huge plans (no sugar, white flour, fried foods, etc, etc) and then struggle with all that they have committed to while also feeling guilty about the whole thing and "being bad" around food. for thanksgiving i did a lot of enjoying the treats that come with the holiday but also did a fair amount of exercise, too, and that helped me feel better and feel less guilty. the other thing i'm working on is celebrating the wonderfulness of good, healthy food, even things that are considered treats (esp when i use whole wheat pastry flour and sugar alternatives such as agave nectar to make them healthier). i also have a big bias toward things that are homemade -- while they may still have sugar and butter in them, i know the love and care and quality of the ingredients that went into them.

Great tips and I need to remember the part about eating things that are truly special vs. the processed, packaged, not home made stuff! I can't remember whose tip this was, but they wore 5 small bangle bracelets and could have five items from the buffet (assume small servings). Each time they ate one, they moved the bracelet from one wrist to the other. Not sure why, but I like this concept. Wish I could do one bracelet for each glass of wine, but I'm thinking five glasses would be a bit much!

I'm all over #3 :)

Thank you so much for this post. After Thanksgiving, a 5-day NYC biz trip, and a holiday party you can bet my clothes are a bit tight (something about free food...)

I'm just going to have to be better about making it to the gym...otherwise I'll be without clothes to wear by the end of the year. :(


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