The holidays are here people. Dietitians prepare for this time. We prepare ourselves for the endless questions from you all about how to not “get fat” yet enjoy all the lovely sugar and fat infested foods that are everywhere for over a month straight. We also prepare to have very few clients buying into our meal planning services HAAA!
So, I thought I would help you out this year. Here are my five tips to help you survive the holidays.
- Drink more water. I don’t care who you are, water makes you feel better! Majority of the time we may think we are craving that double chocolate peppermint fudge but really our bodies just want water (tell yourselves that anyway)- click here for how water will keep you skinny this holiday season!
- Don’t be hard on yourself. We are all going to indulge this holiday season. Yes, especially me. Like I tell my clients all the time, one bad day will not cause a 5 pound weight gain. So if you have a day where you just totally went crazy, mentally prepare yourself to get right back on track the next day. If you end up having another bad day one week later, that is fine. At least it wasn’t an entire bad week. You feel me?
- Think. Literally, y’all. Just think. I know it is so easy to get caught up in what everyone else is doing, but in some situations if you had just stopped and thought about what you were putting on your plate BEFORE you put it there, you wouldn’t have eaten it. Oftentimes when we fill our plates full with all kinds of goodies, we only TRULY wanted one or two of the items. But in Southern tradition, we always clean our plates. Just think before you pile on the congealed salad that you know you truly don’t even like- click here for how to think your way through the holiday season
- Plan ahead. Do you know your office Christmas party is going to be at a delicious restaurant? Check out the menu ahead of time. Do you know that y’all are doing holiday potluck on Friday? Make sure you do right Monday through Thursday so that you can enjoy Friday without guilt. It is not about depriving yourself of the things you love this holiday season, it is about determining which things are worth the adjustment, and which are not.
- Be physically active. Our typical mentality when we start eating poorly is to just continue eating poorly and start skipping the gym too. We think “I will lose the extra weight I gain once things slow down and the holidays are over.” When in reality, many of us rarely do lose the extra weight. I don’t care if it is doing 20 squats while you are cooking dinner or doing dumbbell curls with the snacks you are bringing for your kid’s Christmas party- just make a point to be active this holiday season! click here for tips on how to be more physically active this season.
And I am going to just throw in one bonus tip since I love y’all so much. DO NOT KEEP LEFTOVERS. Jess Shelby loves him some cookies and candy. When we leave a party I always politely decline leftover sweets and casseroles, but somehow they end up in our car (insert eye roll). Then they sit on our counter or in our fridge for days and guess who eats them… just guess. ME!
So get them out of your house. If you bake for a gathering, refuse to bring them back home. Or if you are forced to keep something, allow yourself to keep it for a day but then throw it out! Jess knows that he only has so long before he comes home and I have thrown all the goodies in the trash! So he takes them with him to work or hides them! Out of sight, out of mind. I’m telling y’all, it is the constant nibbling that does the most harm!
I have faith in you! Be on the lookout for more information about how to stay skinny this holiday season!