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‘Tis the season! I just love the holidays (even though Arizona never quite feels like Christmas with it’s 80-degree weather).
But sometimes the ways in which we love the holidays don’t always love us back.
Holiday weight gain can spoil even the merriest of seasons with its ever-lingering shadow–knowing that come January 1st we may be carrying over a few regrets from December.
HEALTHY HOLIDAY MINDSET
The reason we often throw out the playbook with our healthy intentions during the last six weeks of the year is that we feel we deserve to enjoy everything to its fullest.
And you know what? I absolutely believe we do!
You should be allowed to enjoy the holidays and revel in them sans guilt.
It’s just a matter of how you frame it in your mind.
You see, with any discipline (health, business, even doing the laundry), the goal is to make your life happier overall.
Happiness is the end game in all these disciplines–in business, in fitness, in everything.
We just know that there’s a tipping point in which too much short-term holiday indulgence will have a net negative impact.
Think of your health as you would your finances. There’s a tipping point in which either too much spending OR too much saving will likely lead to decreased happiness.
Spending all of our money will create suffering when we can’t pay our bills, lose more money than we have to by incurring major interest on debt, can’t afford to repair things that break, etc.
But we’ve probably also heard stories of those millionaire misers who amass their fortunes through penny-pinching and die with full bank accounts even though they were essentially living as though they were paupers.
We can think of nutrition especially in these terms. Consider your holiday calories like that bank account–it wouldn’t be fun or make you happy to obsess over every last calorie and deprive yourself all throughout the season.
But if you completely throw out all the rules for 6 weeks of the holiday season–you may have decreased happiness come the New Year when your clothes don’t fit and you’ve fallen out of that fitness routine that used to help keep you feeling good.
So coming from a place of abundance, not deprivation, I want you to “spend” your indulgences wisely so you can enjoy yourself in all areas of your life.
With that in mind, here are a few strategies to help you prevent holiday weight gain (or at least too much) and enter your next year with as few regrets as possible.
SAVE UP FOR WHAT YOU LOVE MOST
Nutrition tends to be the part of our health that takes the biggest hit in December, simply because indulgent food and pushy people who brought the indulgent food abound in full force!
It’s a very helpful habit to train yourself to rate how much you enjoy a particular food, saving your splurge calories for those things that bring you the most pleasure.
Eating food just because it’s there is easy to do but is a dangerous path to go down.
Prioritize your pleasure and identify ahead of time which treats are your very favorite–then go ahead and pass on those that are just so-so.
(For more on mindful eating, check out Podcast Episode 13 “How Mindfulness Helped Mitch Todd Lose Weight And Be More Productive”)
BRING THE HEALTHY DISH
Be the one who volunteers to bring the healthy dish–whether that’s a brightly colored crudite platter or a cleaned-up version of a holiday comfort food recipe.
For example, you can experiment with making mashed potatoes using coconut milk instead of lots of cream and butter, or whip up your own hot cocoa with stevia and real cocoa or cacao powder instead of the preservative-laced stuff.
TIP: Search on Pinterest for “clean eating _____ recipe” to find healthy swaps for your favorite holiday comfort foods.
TELL YOURSELF “WAIT” INSTEAD OF “NO”
The moment we put a food on the “forbidden” list, we instantly assign it more value in our heads.
(In short, we want what we can’t have.)
So take away that food’s power by telling yourself wait instead of no.
You can practice the wait principle on both a long-term and short-term basis.
For example, if you have 3 holiday parties to attend on a given week, you might identify ahead of time that you’ll stick to your normal nutrition goals for the first 2 parties, then allow yourself to be more relaxed at the 3rd one.
At a party, load up first on the healthy stuff (lots of veggies, fruits, nuts, etc.), knowing that once you have filled up with healthy food you have full permission to go back through and enjoy whatever you’re still hungry for. (You’ll end up eating a lot less since you’re not so hungry.)
Or at the dinner table, you might be craving seconds of something. Give it 15 minutes (which is the amount of time it takes the brain to register that it’s full), and if you’re still obsessed with it, go for it!
BE SMART ABOUT ALCOHOL
All alcoholic beverages are not created equal.
And while I’m totally fine with you including alcohol into your holiday celebrations, paying attention to what you drink can go a long way in helping you meet your health goals (particularly in avoiding holiday weight gain).
Obviously, we all know that drinking too much can lead to a host of health problems, along with lowering inhibitions and setting ourselves up for an increased likelihood of overeating.
But choosing healthier picks can also make a big difference.
In general, I recommend sticking with wine as your go-to party drink.
The reason? Yes, wine has some healthy antioxidants that can actually be beneficial to your health when consumed in moderation.
But at about 120 calories per 5 oz. pour, it’s also the most predictable of beverages, as well as being very low in sugar and carbohydrates.
The caloric content of beer can range all across the board–from 60 to 400 + calories, and their higher carb content can also be harder on the body than wine.
If you don’t care for wine and don’t want to do the homework to find out the calorie content of a beer, then stick with straight liquor like bourbon or vodka, with the big caveat that you will sip–not slurp!
Ultimately, sweet cocktails are what you want to limit most. The combination of sugar and alcohol carries a heavy metabolic load for the body to process, and their sweetness can lead us to consume them faster and more frequently than other alcoholic drinks.
And of course, all rules are meant to be broken. 🙂 Which means if you need to have a spiked eggnog or two before the year is over, I won’t judge.
(In fact, I’ll probably be joining you.)
DO PRIORITIZE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
It’s easy for our exercise routines to get thrown off during the holidays because of so many changes to our usual schedule.
But prioritizing physical activity–even if it’s different from your normal exercise routine–will help you tackle the holidays in the best state of mind.
Studies show that we are less emotionally reactive to others when we are physically active.
(For more on this, check out my blog post “Choosing Between Exercise and Relationships?“)
The good news is that even a little exercise can instantly improve your mood and help you stay in the habit of moving your body–shopping those holiday sales, catching up with a loved one over a walk, playing with your kids in the snow–those can all totally count!
The key to staying on track with your health, and especially with avoiding holiday weight gain, is to plan for some indulgences and have enough mindfulness to discern between what will bring you more pleasure overall and what won’t.
To kickstart your mind’s ability to pause and reflect, I invite you to take part in my free 7-Day Mindset Mantra Challenge. During this challenge, you’ll receive a free text message every day for one week with a centering mantra to focus on–a mantra that has been specifically crafted to address those issues of perfectionism and busyness that we entrepreneurs tend to struggle with the most!
TAKE THE 7-DAY MINDSET MANTRA CHALLENGE
