It’s a HoliDAY not a HoliWEEK, MONTH or YEAR!

Welcome to Day 5 of Living Healthy During the Holidays week. I hope you’ve been enjoying the recipes, guest posts, and giveaway I’ve had for you so far. Don’t tune out just yet though, as we still have some good stuff left to talk about. Today’s post is by yours truly. I’d really love it if you’d leave me a comment and let me know how you’re liking this special theme week so far.

And don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed, so you can make sure that you don’t miss a minute of the remainder of the week… we aren’t finished yet. For some reason I had 90 some people unsubscribe from my feed yesterday. Talk about a kick in the gut. I’m hoping it’s a computer glitch, but if not, then I guess too bad for them!

Now on to the subject at hand.
The holidays are here! Next week at this time, I’ll be stuffing my face full of food running in my self-created turkey trot** and later having a delicious meal. Thanksgiving seems to be the start of it all, and we all know it seems to just go downhill from there. Its kind of like when you make a snowman. You start with a really small snowball and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger as you roll it.


But why do we let our eating “snowball” this time of year? We let it get out of control, and STAY out of control. For me, it was, and I’ll be honest, still sometimes is, an “all or nothing” type of mentality:

• Why should I even bother losing weight this time of year. I’m not going to be successful with all of the holidays, parties, _____________ I have going on (you fill in the blank).
• I don’t have time to exercise today, so I guess I’ll just completely give up on the week.
• I ate A LOT of food on Thanksgiving…. WOW, my weight is up. I just as well spend the rest of the weekend eating like its my last meal, since I‘m going to gain this week anyways.
• I’ll start again in January… I won’t gain that much in the meantime!

DON’T DO IT!!! It isn’t worth it, and yes, you can gain that much. Trust me on this one… I have run every experiment in the book on gaining weight.

So how to combat this “all or nothing” mentality:
First you have to think today is a HoliDAY. So fine it’s a special day, then eat that special meal and the things you love, and the next day, wake up, and start over. It’s OK. This is a win. This is a success. The key is it is ONE DAY. The next day you are back at it. Give yourself permission to do what you want on the HoliDAY, but remember it is NOT a HoliWEEK, MONTH or YEAR. That is what will take you down. That is what will make you need that New Year’s resolution so desperately on Jan 1st.

Next, don’t eat everything. Yeah, I know, you don’t want to hear that, but seriously How good are those store bought rolls and canned cranberry sauce anyways? You don’t have to eat it all, but you can absolutely have what you want. Ask yourself, is this really a 10? If the answer is “yes”, eat it, enjoy it, and move on. If the answer is no, maybe consider only a small bite, or even pass on it this time. It will be empowering… I promise! I also ask myself, “Is this a special food? Can I get it in another place at another time?” If the answer is no and it is your mother’s hot from the oven potato rolls smeared with butte, or a piece of lefse with cheese and sausage (Yes, I write this as much for myself as you), then allow yourself to indulge in a reasonable portion, and move on.

Finally, I want you to set realistic, reasonable goals. It is not reasonable to think that you will not drink any wine, eat no dessert, and only take turkey breast sans gravy or skin and veggies for Thanksgiving dinner. It is reasonable to change your goal to be something like:
I will exercise for 30 minutes today, I will choose reasonable portions of the foods that I love, and I will allow myself 1 OK fine 2 glasses of wine with dinner. I will have a ½ piece of my favorite pie, and then I will stop eating for the day. That is a reasonable goal statement. If you don’t set a reasonable goal for the HoliDAY I believe failure to meet your goal will result in that “all or nothing” attitude again, and you will end up just throwing in the towel. Remember my belief that every day can be a Monday. If this does happen, wake up the next morning - realize the HoliDAY is now over - and move on.

Got it? OK, now go and enjoy your HoliDAY! I believe you are ready for anything.


** Self-created turkey trot is the First Annual Go Fast Before you Feast turkey trot thought of and created by me. CCWL, a few of my peeps, and me are running around a local lake on Thanksgiving morning. 
The long range weather forecast promises me that this Thanksgiving will be the coldest in 20 years with highs in the upper teens.  Bring it!  Oh, yeah baby, that’s gonna be cold!