It’s here! The Holidays. Halloween was the intro, but Thanksgiving is a full court press of the “season”!
This is a wonderful time of year, however working with clients, this can be some of he most challenging weeks of the year…late November through January.
There’s travel, shopping, family, friends, parties and FOOD…wonderfully decadent food! We want to be able to kick up our heels, relax on the couch, avoid workouts, sipping eggnog, enjoying home made pastries, laughing with friends and family and pretending that if we have an abundance of cheese, double servings of stuffing, samplings of every dish made and drink wine instead of water that it is ok.
Well, it is ok, but you might just put on a few pounds. But maybe that’s ok with you! Maybe you worked hard in September and October to allow yourself to put on a few pounds. Maybe you’ve hired a personal trainer (I know some great ones) who will help you burn it off. Or maybe you are like so many who have this happy place called denial and in January you feel puffy, sick, heavy, toxic and have the same 10 pounds to lose that you work on every January.
Here’s a novel thought…you can laugh, enjoy friends and family, relax and still have a great time. You can make this season different…you can start January off with a healthy body, a lean tummy and kidneys which love you!
Here’s the trick. Decide now how you want to feel come January 1. Decide now if you are willing to make some adjustments (I didn’t say deprivations) which will help you wind up at your destination place in January; feeling pretty darn good!
Let’s say you are at a healthy body weight now and you’d like to be there in 6 weeks. You will need to make some choices now on how and what you will eat and “do”. How about you decide you will get in 200 minutes of activity a week, any way you can fit it in. Decide that now and calendar it. Invite your family, invite your out of town guests to be active because chances are they, too, are stressed about getting in enough activity! You will be giving them a gift quite possibly.
Then you decide you will eat some out of the box foods, but only those which you might not ever get to try again, or won’t for another year. Decide to fill up your plate with 70% vegetables and then if you want more, you wait 20 minutes and get only 1 item which is “calling” to you.
Decide now you will drink 80+ oz of water a day (I recommend at least 100).
Another consideration is if you are looking at the food options and there’s rolls, potatoes, and pastries, you take a pause and realize you could have those ANY time of the year. They aren’t just available during Thanksgiving, so consider saving those for another occasion.
Think about it this way…when you start buying Christmas gifts, most of us decide on a budget so we don’t end up paying off our credit cards for the next 8 months of 2015 from this time of year. We set our boundaries now and look for the deals. It’s the same way with our health. If we can pay “cash” (so to speak) for our health and not go in to debt in January, we’ll be ahead of the game with our health. What an amazing feeling that will be!
