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Come over to the forum and join us for the December ADVENT CALENDAR Challenge.
This is a points based challenge, suitable for weight loss, weight maintenance, and even controlled weight gain! Earn points for exercising, weight control, posting recipes, and meeting each of 31 different nutrition or exercise based “picture” challenges.
Come join us today!
I stole this line from Lyle McDonald because I love it so much. It’s perfect for the holidays and goes in line with the last tip on the topic: Plan to Maintain.
There are a plethora of bad choices that face us during the holidays. Do we have another helping? Do we have dessert? Do we have 2 desserts (who can resist taking a piece of both types of pie after Thanksgiving dinner)? Do we have another glass of champagne? Do we take the chocolate that’s offered?
Sometimes you can’t say “no” without being the Grinch – and sometimes we don’t want to say no. But saying yes doesn’t mean you can just abdicate all responsibility and go crazy. So instead make reasonable choices to indulge where it’s important.
In other words: if you’re going to choose to eat something that falls on the “bad” side of the equation, at least make it a better bad choice.
Or as another friend of mine says: just because you take a small step off the path, it doesn’t mean you should throw yourself down the side of the mountain.
Enjoy your holiday reasonably rather than making it an all or nothing.
(And please remember during the holiday season to drink responsibly if alcohol is part of your celebrations!)
This is the first of a series of posts on how to survive the Holidays. For those of us in the United States, we have nearly three months of food, parties, alcohol, and temptation. It starts with Thanksgiving in November, moves on to Christmas in December, continues with New Years Eve and Day, and ends sometime in January with the obligatory SuperBowl parties (which you often can’t avoid, football fan, or not). And even for those of us not in the States, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, and other seasonal holidays often put a crimp in weight loss and dieting plans!
Our first weight loss tip for the holiday season is this: Plain to Maintain
What does that mean? It means that for some people it might be better to not try to lose weight over the holidays. The pressure of special (and often calorie laden) holiday foods, parties, eating out, family and friends, and so many other things makes it really hard to say “no no no” all the time. And you don’t want to be the party pooper who sits at their desk while coworkers are socializing, or rejects every party invitation, or comes to the Thanksgiving dinner table with your Tupperware container of chicken breast, brown rice, and steamed broccoli!
Instead set your mind that for the next three months, you’ll maintain your current weight by making healthy choices and continuing to exercise, but allowing yourself a little more leeway than you do when you’re in a strict weight loss mode.
Not only will planning to maintain take some of the pressure off, it will also give you a bit of insight into how you’ll handle things after you’ve reached your goal.
Of course if you’re still able to lose weight over the holidays, we salute you! (And we want to know what your will power secret is! 
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