After a LIVE I ran in My Diet-Less Life all about staying on-track and eating a lower carb diet during this Festive time…
I thought it might be nice to share the help we chatted about, with you.
If you’re eating for health or weight loss right now, then Christmas really doesn’t have to mean complete failure for you! You can enjoy the season with everyone else, stay on track, and not feel like you’re missing out! Here’s are some really simple ways to ensure you don’t need to loosen your belt and start all over again on January 1st:
Remember…
Christmas isn’t actually a whole month of eating and drinking…for most of us, it’s a few days and events, scattered over a few weeks (unless you’re a Kardashian, but then you’re probably not reading this if you are!), where you’ll be having different reasons to celebrate, probably with different people too. Workmates on the annual Christmas night out will need a different approach than your mum trying to feed you up on Christmas day, for instance.
Seeing Christmas like this helps to knock out that All-Or-Nothing thinking of “Well, it’s Christmas, so I may as well feast away, and then deal with the consequences in January!”. It’s not a great big event to deal with, but a series of smaller ones, that are far more manageable when dealt with individually.
I know a lot of people have that All-Or-Nothing thinking…like, a lot of people, and it can be very easy to be persuaded by that permissive thinking, but seeing it for what it is…permissive thinking…will help a lot. You already know what that attitude will lead to in January, and it’s not nice!
Break the events up into:
1…ONES I will easily stay on track
2…THOSE I WANT to stay on track, but will be hard
3…TIMES I’ve decided I want to go off plan
Firstly…
1…Great! Do it! No need to worry about it. Just remember that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a weight loss day, just one where you felt in control of your eating, which is a very nice feeling this time of year anyway, and a great big win for you! Just take what you need from the situation and give yourself a secret high-five!
The trickiest will be these…
2…Ok, let’s tackle what will be hard. There are a few classic reasons, so lets deal with them here:
- Set menu, or food prepared by others. If you don’t have ANY choice in what you’ll be eating, then eat before you go, and don’t be starving by the time you sit down. It’s not a waste if it’s not on your waist! Pick the filling food off your plate first, and enjoy all the good bits…you won’t have so much room for the rubbish then, anyway. If you’re worried about the pudding, and caving in to the sugar, then use the technique here.
- Tapping before you go will help knock out the sugar cravings before they even start! You can use it as much as you need to, and once you get confident in it, it will only take a minute of your time to bring the cravings down to a manageable feeling.
- Staying at other’s homes who are providing the food. Ok, so this is more tricky, but a good idea is to take food with you…I know plenty of clients who do this, and it works for them. Take lots of filling food so you can join in with everyone else, but don’t need to reply completely on the food available for you. You could offer to bring dessert, and make one that you’re going to be ok with? Just think, you’ll be introducing people to tasty, healthy food, so it’s win/win all round that way for you and them. Eat as well as you can in the day, so if there’s lots of evening snacking around, you won’t feel so tempted.
- Being around feeders, or having ‘traditional’ meals and treats. Expectation from others can be a big one, and there’s no need to hurt anyone’s feelings, just because you’re enjoying your own Way Of Eating. Again, you could offer to bring the dessert or treats? If you’re faced with Family Feeders, a simple “Maybe later, I’m full for now thanks” will usually do! It takes the challenge out of your choice, and is a real conversation stopper…it’s a rare person that will force you to eat their offerings when they think you’re full! Also, you don’t have to defend your choices or explain yourself that way either.
And lastly…
3…This is may well be part of your Festive season… especially Christmas or Boxing day, which are the traditional ‘blow out’ days for pretty much the whole population!
Ok, this now means you’re in control of that, because you decided to go off-plan in advance, you can take the pressure off yourself. Again, this prevents that All-Or-Nothing… “I’ve gone right off plan, so may as well pig out now!” permissive thinking. It’s sometimes a good idea to go off plan for the very reason of remembering how painful it feels to eat the rubbish carbs and sugars. The longer you go without eating all of that, the more dramatically your body will react to it…going off plan reminds us of WHY we eat healthily in the first place. Then you’ll find yourself looking forward to going back to your own Way Of Eating again! That’s the best result at the end of the day…reinforcing why you do what you do!
HOW ABOUT re-creating some of your favourite treats…there’s lots of recipes out there now. I made some low carb mince pies the other day (the recipe is on the @Breakthroughweightloss facebook page), they were heaven, and didn’t last very long! That way, you’ll feel like you’re joining in without missing out on the fun!
Lastly…just remember that January 1st will arrive! How do you want to feel then? Smug would be nice, I bet! No need to loosen your belt, or face a horribly high mountain to climb to simply get yourself back to pre-Christmas weight…and you’ll have enjoyed yourself too…how nice is that?!
Whatever you do, just enjoy yourself and relish the break…we all work damn hard these days, so do yourself a favour and just be nice to yourself…feeding yourself well can still be a part of that, but enjoy it your way! You deserve it!
Love Bridgette x
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