You are working hard to lose weight and now….
Christmas Day is here, how are you going to survive that big Christmas Dinner?
I know for me in the past, I would sit down at that table and eat whatever I wanted even though, in the back of my mind, I would regret it the next day.
So how can you survive that big dinner?
Here are my 6 tips for Surviving Christmas:
#1: Decide and get clear on what result you want to have at the end of the day and WHY.
What do you want to think and feel, and why?
Is it that you want to feel content in what you ate or do you want to feel so uncomfortable because you stuffed yourself and that you now feel so disappointed because you have to “start over” tomorrow with your weight loss.
Knowing ahead of time what result you want at the end of the day will help you to choose what you will eat because you have looked at what consequences you could experience.
#2: Write out your game plan the night before.
I call it your 24-hour plan
Think about what will be on that dinner table.
I know some of you might say, but I don’t know what will be available.
Well, I am sure you have a general idea of what will be offered. There will be meat, vegetables, some type of carbohydrate and desserts. So from there, decide what and how much you will choose to have.
Remember that you can eat ANYTHING you want to.
You do not decide what to eat from a diet mentality but by being very realistic. Do not try to deprive or restrict yourself because that will only lead you to overeat.
#3: What will your focus be on?
What I want you to think about is, is what is more important. Is the food going to be your focus, or is it going to be that the time with your family and friends is more important?
#4: Plan of Action
Why you need a plan of action is because when you sit down at the table, and all that food is in front of you, your old way of thinking will shout out loudly.
For me some of my thoughts that swirled around were;
-“It’s Christmas, so it’s not fair I can’t have it.”
-“I won’t be able to have it any other day”
-“I will start over tomorrow”
-“I don’t want to come across as rude when they offer that food to me, so I will have to eat it.”
Yeah, all those thoughts and most likely others will pop up in your head, so I want you to talk kindly and gently to those thoughts and say to yourself that you have made a commitment to follow your 24-hour plan, and that is what you are going to do.
Remember that food is never the problem. Food just sits there and doesn’t do anything. The problem is always our thoughts about the food.
Food does NOT have control over you, and everything you decide to eat is a choice you have made from the thoughts that you are having.
I want you think ahead of time that if it gets hard for you to follow your plan what is it that you can do or think?
Decide what you want to eat, what you don’t care about passing over, and how full you want to be.
Remember everything is a choice; You choose what you eat and you choose the consequences you will have.
Also is there something you can tell yourself to help you make the best decisions in that moment?
Planning ahead of time on how you will handle the hard moments is very important because they will happen.
#5: Execute your plan
The day is here.
You’ve planned it and thought it all through.
Keep your commitment to yourself and execute it.
#6: Assess, learn and let it go!
The next day… take a look at the results you had. Be honest with yourself, but be kind and compassionate.
Ask yourself;
-What worked?
-What didn’t work?
-What would you do again?
-What would you do differently next time?
Ask all these questions with a curious mind and remember that how you ate yesterday is over.
If you did go off your plan, do NOT beat yourself up. You can’t change the past, but you can learn from it.
Beating ourselves up about what we ate never helps us make different, better choices.
Just remember if this is all new to you, you most likely will not get it perfect right away. It takes time to improve on what you have been doing.
Karen
P.S. Join my facebook community here of Successful Women losing weight for the Last time where you can get more information and support. And if you are part of the group already and need more assistance, reach out to me and book a Free call here where I will help you dig deep into how you can lose weight for the last time!
