The Thanksgiving Shouldas

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Thanksgiving is behind us and it is time to get back to the routine.

If you are like most people, there is a good chance that you veered away from your usual healthy diet plan. Maybe you even skipped a workout or two over the holiday weekend (gasp). You are now faced with two options.

1. Beat yourself up

Worry over the shoulda, woulda, couldas, envisioning the fat cells in your thighs plumping, focusing on how puffy or fat or (insert adjective of choice) you feel.

Torment yourself over how you should have known better, planned better, done better.

Blame your Aunt Sally for bringing those damn potatoes she knows you love and pressuring you into having a second helping, when you knew you should have used your intuitive eating skills and stopped when you were full after your first.

OR

2. Leave the past in the past

Whether it was three days ago or even this morning at breakfast, what is done is done and you can’t change what has already happened.

Let go of it.

If you messed up and got off track from your normal healthy eating habits, learn from it. Use your “mistakes” for the opportunities that they are and allow yourself to become a stronger, more educated person because of them.

Think of it this way, you are now more in-tune and better equipped to plan for this next month through Christmas and Hanukkah.

A fear worse than… food

I used to be really scared of the holiday season. I thought that the key to my happiness was sticking to my healthy diet plan, exactly as I had calculated it, and if I slipped up at any point during this season of celebrations and parties, I’d put myself through the proverbial wringer.

I would focus so much energy on how I had to get back to my normal food and normal routine. I’d almost obsess about how I shouldn’t have eaten whatever “bad food” that I ate and how I’d have to workout ten times harder to make up for it.

I’d even make up excuses so that I didn’t have to go out with friends for fear that I’d eat or drink something that I viewed as empty calories because I didn’t trust myself to be around it without eating/drinking it.

I really was just plain scared of food.

What the hell kind of life is that to live??

What I didn’t realize at the time was that the worrying and stress I was causing myself was actually far worse than whatever amount I might have eaten above my “plan.” And that stress was not only jacking up my digestion and my body’s ability to metabolize food properly, but it was also feeding my ongoing cycle of binging and dieting.

But ya know what, it’s okay because I didn’t know then what I know now. And now… I know better.

Remember what the holidays are really about

I was all backwards. I was forgetting what the holidays are supposed to be all about in the first place – appreciation, laughs, hugs, being with those that we love and good food. Since then, I’ve learned that I don’t have to be scared of food, I don’t have to deprive myself of foods that I enjoy eating in order to stick to my healthy eating plan, and when I changed my relationship with food… the way my body was able to metabolize food changed.

So as you proceed into this holiday season, rather than beating yourself up and feeling guilty over that Christmas cookie you ate because your co-worker passes them out each year as gifts, or that extra serving of Grandma’s bourbon bread pudding, keep the big picture in mind.

If you choose to indulge, eat it, enjoy it, and let it go. Be grateful for this time of year and all that it encompasses. Spend time with family and friends that make you happy. Connect with one another. Laugh a lot. Give yourself a break.

You might be surprised at the shifts that happen in those moments of easing up on yourself. It was when I let go of forcing myself to follow the strict guidelines I thought I had to follow that I almost effortlessly began to develop a healthy relationship with food and was able to finally maintain my weight loss for good. I even noticed that my body started naturally craving healthy, whole food options over the high-sugar, “empty calorie” foods I feared in the past.

So worry less. Appreciate more. Love the body that you have. Savor each and every food that you eat. And the next thing ya know, you might find yourself daydreaming about a big colorful salad just as much as that that cookie… and you’ll stop and think…

Ah, I get it. THIS is how healthy eating just becomes a part of who you are.”

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