#1 Festive Season Tip To Avoid Weight Gain
I have plenty of Christmas blogs on which foods are the most calorie laden, which drinks to avoid, some recipes etc. So this year I’m going to share a more general, practical strategy to avoid gaining weight over the festive period. It’s a simple tip you can implement right away but will give you maximum benefit from doing so. Here is my #1 Festive Season Tip To Avoid Weight Gain.
Season to be Jolly
Its goes without saying that at this time of year there are a lot more parties, dinners and social engagements than normal. That can be quite daunting for some people because its seems ‘impossible’ to keep control of your weight. Perhaps you have spent the last 3/6 months steadily losing weight, changing your habits etc, and this month things seem out of your control.
What can then happen is people develop what I call the ‘**** it’ mentality. This basically means saying to yourself, ‘there is no way I can control what I eat/drink this month. It’s totally out of my control. So I may as well forget about my healthy regime and goals entirely for now.’ And therefore you write the whole month off totally.
What can you do instead?
What I think can be quite helpful is to sit and down and write down all your social engagements from now until the New Year. This will obviously be different for everyone but let’s say you might come up with;
1 x Work Christmas Party
2 x Dinners With friends
5 x Drinks with friends/family
2 x Family/Christmas dinner celebrations
Now you could even take this a step further and estimate your calorie intake for these events.
1 x Work Christmas Party – 1000 calories
2 x Dinners With friends – 3000 calories
5 x drinks with friends/family – 2000 calories
2 x Family/Christmas dinner celebrations – 3000 calories
Total – 9000 calories
Again this is a rough estimate and will be totally different for everyone. But the point of the exercise is to give you an idea how many excess calories you may consume over the course of the month. Keeping in mind that 1 pound of fat equates to 3500 calories.
So in the above example you would be consuming just over 2 ½ pounds of excessive calories over the course of the month. Would it be the end of the world if you had 2 ½ pounds to lose in January? Looking at it rationally that’s certainly not weight will take too long to shift. The point of the exercise is to show you that’s its not THAT BAD. Perhaps in your mind the damage is potentially worse than in reality. And of course you can plan your food/drink approach around it to help minimize the impact. If you are going out in the evening, minimise the calories that day in the lead up. And/or get an extra workout in that day or the next.
Are you prone to panicking?
A lot of us panic and catastrophise when we are in situations that we can’t control as we would like. Hopefully by doing this exercise you will panic less about the potential weight gain effect of the month. And are therefore less likely to go off the rails the rest of the time which is the real key.
If you consume the above 9000 excess calories but also then start having a couple of drinks at home most nights, tucking into the mince pies, the celebrations, the cheese straws, the crisps etc. you can see how that figure of 9000 could easily treble, quadruple or even worse. Then you have actually done some real damage and have 10 pounds to shift in January.
Conclusion – #1 Festive Season Tip To Avoid Weight Gain
Its important to see that whilst some of the social events may not be in your full control, what goes in your mouth the rest of the time absolutely still is. Having the mindfulness to accept the social engagements and still eat well and healthily the rest of the time is the real key. If you are able to manage that, any damage you do will be relatively minor.