Holiday Weight Gain

Side note: I took a long, hot shower and a Zyrtec last night. I woke up this morning feeling like I could almost breath. My ears cleared up just long enough for me to remember how nice it is to be able to hear things properly. I’m just a wee bit bitter about this all.

Today’s blog-off topic is about holiday eating and weight gain. 

As anyone who has to watch what they eat knows, the holidays can be a real minefield when it comes to maintaining your weight. It feels like you’re bombarded from all sides by delicious things to tempt you away from your healthy eating plan. Coffee shops offer up special holiday drinks featuring mint, eggnog, cinnamon, etc. and they all contain approximately 5,716 calories each. Holiday parties offer up temptation in buffet form. Coworkers bring in cookies. The weather takes a turn for the cold and suddenly it’s not so appealing to get out of bed in the morning and go for a jog.

Last year, I completely gave up on my healthy eating plan and went hog wild on Christmas cookies, fudge and eggnog. I was bad about weighing myself everyday. I didn’t exercise as much as I should have. 

I ended up gaining back a good portion of the weight that I had lost the previous year.

It was an awful feeling. I felt like I had been short-sighted. I had definitely been gluttonous. 

This year, I’ve vowed to make a change. I’m not going to let myself undo all of my hard-work. I’m not going to sabotage myself. I might not leave the holiday season lighter, but I’ll be damned if I leave it heavier.

But how in the hell do you do that when temptation lurks behind every single corner?

The first thing I needed was an attitude change. Last year, I went into the holiday season convinced that I was going to continue my weight loss. When it became abundantly clear that this just wasn’t possible, I gave up completely. This year, my goals are simpler and, I hope, this will help me to stick to the right path. With realistic ideas about how this could all go, I think that I should be able to control myself better.

So how do I hope to accomplish my zero-gain holiday season?

The first thing is that I plan to weigh myself every day. I do this anyways, but last year I got lazy and stopped doing it around the middle of December. Then, when January came around, I had the unhappy experience of stepping on the scale and realizing just how badly I had been eating. This year, I refuse to go more than a couple of days without stepping on that scale. It will help me see the weight creeping on before it gets out of control. 

I don’t know about y’all, but I read a lot of stupid women’s magazines. Every year, they publish an article about how to avoid holiday weight gain and every year I read it and then promptly ignore everything that they’ve said. I know that Cosmo and Health Magazine aren’t exactly gospel, but they do have some good things to say about how to avoid gaining during the holidays. This year, I might actually listen to them.

Here are some of my plans:

• Amp up the exercise. A few extra calories are bound to sneak in, it’s just the nature of the season. So, to counteract all that, I’m going to attempt to add in more cardio. As I’ve been doing approximately zero cardio since it got too cold to play outside, this shouldn’t be too hard. Kristian and I recently purchased a treadmill off of Craigslist, so I’m going to attempt to run on it 3-4 times a week.
• Having a little protein before we head out for a holiday event. This should help me avoid getting ravenously hungry and then eating every single gingerbread man in site when we get to a party.
• Filling up my plate with vegetables in order to leave less room for the foods that will really pack on the calories. If I tell myself that I love crudites enough, eventually I will believe myself. And crudites with approximately 7 pounds of dip on them do not count as a healthy choice, as much as I might want them to. 
• No mindless snacking. I will think long and hard about everything that I put into my mouth. Hopefully, this will give me enough time for my conscience to kick in and prevent me from eating 47 hershey’s kisses in one sitting.