I started fighting my weight problem two months ago. Yes, my weight problem actually started years ago. But, I hadn’t started fighting it yet until I finally made up my mind.
I was mentally charged with losing the weight and taking it off for good. What I didn’t think about was the days to come. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are that lethal combination of days that make a weight loss program very difficult.
Halloween Trick or Treating brings home a plethora of candy and assorted goods that are so hard to deny. But, I have a daughter. Trick or treat is mandatory. A month later almost to the day comes a great day of eating that has no mercy.
Thanksgiving is the day to stuff yourself to death and sit miserably on the couch. The day was actually designed for overeating. Not only do you feel miserable because you ate more food than you normally eat in a week, but you know you just screwed up your diet. You gained more weight on that day than you lost in the last two months working on your diet.
Now, Christmas comes ahead. That’s not just a day’s worth of eating. That’s a whole month. Wherever you go, there’s a party going on all month long because people are trying to have you visit for Christmas and get you out of the way before Christmas Day finally comes. People want to spend Christmas with their families, so they invite their friends over at the beginning of the month and fatten everyone up just so they can say they thought of you over the holidays.
If you’re not ready to meet the holiday season, you may feel the need to go off your diet and spend even more time fighting your weight until you reach the image you have of yourself in your mind. So get ready. You have to be mentally prepared and you have to make sure that your body doesn’t get confused.
First of all, don’t let your mind beat you to it. If you can’t lose weight during the vacation months, you can at least set a goal of maintaining your current weight. That’s good enough to keep you motivated until the holidays are over. Make sure that when you step on the scale you never read more than the day before. It is not a step back. It’s standing still until the dust settles. You will have more time in the future to return to the extreme diet, as long as you don’t make it more difficult for yourself when you do it.
Maintain your diet between the Christmas festivities. Just because you messed up your diet one night doesn’t mean you can’t get back on it the next day. Do it again as soon as possible. In fact, make sure that the next meal you eat after enjoying a night of bliss is heavily focused on only the foods that are supposed to be in your diet.
When you’re visiting a friend’s house and you find a huge buffet in the dining room, don’t worry. Cut your portions in half. Take a taste. Don’t eat the same amount of food as you normally do when samples are all you need. You can still enjoy the food. Just not that much.
Commit to getting a little more exercise. Walk more. Bike more. Even dance more! If the holidays are going to be a festive occasion, get more active and hit the dance floor. Any activity that comes your way is your chance to burn some calories. Go sing Christmas carols. When it snows, find a good hill to sled on. You will go up the hill every time you go down. Shovel the snow… help the neighbors. Play a soccer game. You get the idea.
The most important thing is to remember that you are trying to lose weight and you are not going to let the holidays ruin it. You can do physical activities that help you burn calories. You can monitor how much you eat and make sure your weight doesn’t gain back. But the main thing is that you keep it in mind.
The weight loss battle is fought and won in the mind. The battle may be over before it begins. But you can prevent that from happening if you stay focused. Accept calculated vacation losses. Do what you can to make sure you at least maintain your weight. Fight every day for every calorie.
Remember Al Pacino’s speech from any sunday which is so famously called “Inch for Inch”.
“I really don’t know what to say.
three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional life
it all comes down to today…
inch by inch,
play for play
until we’re done.”
In your mind, in your own battle, it’s about calories. Every calorie counts. And when the holidays are over, you can look in the mirror and wonder what happened to you. Wouldn’t you rather be able to say the holidays were fun, but you’re still in the battle? You are not going anywhere. See you on the goal line.
