This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Structure Will Help You Maintain During the Holidays

By setting up a plan, you'll sail through the holidays with good health and weight maintenance.

What are we to do when surrounded by little holiday cookies, latkes, chocolates, cheese logs and fruitcake?  This is a really complicated food month.  It can seem that there's a holiday event or a special food item waiting for us every where we turn.  Is it possible to maintain your weight during this holiday month?  Absolutely!  It only takes creating a little structure for yourself.

Take a look at your December calendar.  What feels like a food and drink laden month may really only be a few events spotted here and there. Mark down all your events.  Think about which is going to have the most delectable choices.  Highlight those events.  Then plan for those truly special events.  There are going to be huge blocks of time this month when you don't have holiday festivities.  Really!  We probably aren't out at a holiday party 24/7 - it just can feel that way.

Now that you have your special holiday events highlighted, start to mentally rehearse what you want to eat and drink at each event.  How indulgent do you want to be?  How healthy?  How mindful?  When we plan ahead and run our scenario over in our heads many times beforehand, we are much more likely to stick to our envisioned plan.  Try it out!

Find out what's happening in El Cerritowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Now, it can also help to create not only a party schedule, as outlined above, but a food/drink structure.  Here's how I do it:

I have a "rule" that unless I have rice milk in my coffee, I don't drink things that have Weight Watchers PointsPlus Values.  It's just not my thing.  If you care to have a cocktail or glass of wine, just plan it in.  It's establishing the "rule" or structure that will help keep your weight steady for the next few weeks.

Find out what's happening in El Cerritowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Now that I'm vegan, another "rule" I won't eat baked goods that are filled with butter and eggs.  That automatically eliminates 95% of the holiday treats that might surround me.  My mid-western family is into the holiday baking tradition big-time.  We receive an annual care package of 13 types of cookies - and 18 of each type.  Do the math and you'll see that my one household receives 234 cookies every mid-December.  This does not count the other baked items that appear at the doorstep, or the boxes of See's that are so kindly offered.  Wow!  That's a lot of energy sitting on the counter.  With the no butter or egg rule, I won't have to even think about these treats.  It's just a "no" - no choice.

Have you heard about the "3-bite rule"?  I talk about it all the time in the Weight Watchers meeting room around the holidays.  So, apparently our brains can't taste more than the first three bites of whatever we eat.  Try it!  So try 3 bites of this, then you're done with it.  Try 3 bites of that, then you're done with that food too.  Knowing that after three bites we're just eating but not tasting our foods can help us to slow down, choose our foods carefully, and only take 3 bites of each choice.  That gives us the opportunity to try tastes of lots of things and still be reasonable about our overall consumption.

What are some rules or structure that would work for you?  Which event(s) are worth saving your big food/drink budget for?  What do you want to do with the tasty gifts so kindly offered?  How will you manage the office environment when vendors and customers load you up with their annual thank you sugar mountain?  

Think.  Plan.  Choose.  And then enjoy!  With mindfulness and moderation, you'll sail through the next few weeks with tastes of treats, and not an overload.

 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?