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It’s already started. An entire grocery cart full of bags of my favorite candy — mellowcreme candy pumpkins — marked down to 75 cents, testing my temptation mettle. There is no time like Halloween through New Year’s Day to challenge our resolve to take care of our bodies.
Over-consumption of goodies, disrupted sleep and schedules, and financial and family stress can leave one feeling “hung over” in January, even without an ounce of alcohol consumed. What I call “Holiday Health Hangover” leaves a lot of people thinking DIET at the top of their New Year’s Resolution List. WORK OUT is next. We are highly motivated at that time to “straighten” up after our excesses during the holidays, but that approach is not always sustainable.
he cycle of over-doing it through the holidays, thinking we’ll get back on a healthier plan in January, reminds me of someone I knew who insisted on climbing higher to the mountaintop only to find himself stranded with no way back down. When he finally found a small path, it was rugged and led him to the other side of the mountain from which he had to trek many more hours to get back to base.
If there were ways to keep some semblance of normalcy throughout the holidays so that in January you could work on other resolutions instead of your health recovery, would that be a good investment of your time? Of your energy?
It begins with goal setting, and even more importantly, vision casting. How DO you want to FEEL in January? If what you want to feel like in the long run is bigger than what you want when faced with the temptation to indulge, it helps solidify your resistance.
Exercise is one activity that tends to slide. Weather can interefere. Add shopping, travel and vacation to the mix of your leisure hours, and it’s easy to let exercise slide and say, “Tomorrow.” Then, “Next week I’ll do better.” Then, “After the holidays, I’ll start up again.”
With a little planning ahead, you could shop all year long, picking up things as you see them. You could forgo the stress of buying presents if money is tight and agree with the family to merely gather together and enjoy each other’s presence instead of presents. Saves time, saves money, relieves stress. It’s a bold move, but amazingly freeing. Better yet, pool together resources to bless a more needy family, making their season brighter along with yours.
The biggest over-consumption can be in eating those once-a-year goodies, which usually are not low fat, low sugar or low in calories. It’s a lot of fun to make them, fun to taste them, but too much of a good thing can hit bottom -literally.
Even the most nutritious eaters get tested around the holidays, but they’ve learned some strategies to help them enjoy some of the festive foods and still not get thrown out of kilter too much.
Sugar used to be a major staple of my diet when I was a youngster, but it caught up with me eventually. Feeling crummy after over-eating sugar cured my sweet tooth.
I’ve learned that if I can deliberately use another isolated sense to enjoy something, I still get some of the pleasure out of it without the side effects of consuming the whole thing and its consequences. I used another sense – touch, instead of taste – to conquer the candy pumpkin cravings the day after this Halloween. I laid my hand lightly on the bags in the shopping cart, said no, and then was able to walk right by it. Simply smelling something has satisfied me enough, as well.
For others, these strategies amplify the cravings. One of the most subtle traps about craving and overeating is the underlying aspect of comfort and mood. As a baby, one of our most basic needs was met through our mouth. Add to that the family-favorite foods served around the holiday table over the years and you cook up a recipe for comfort-induced over-indulgence. Overriding cravings, which often originate from an emotional level, really comes back to our goals and eating intentionally. When we eat according to our short-term feelings, we don’t give ourselves time to eat proactively instead of reactively.
Here are some more ways to short-circuit the immediate urges:
• Practice exercising your inner governor before you really need it. Try it out on indulgences that aren’t your biggest trigger foods.
• Eat your fill of nutritious foods at home before you go out, so you aren’t as hungry when you head into Holiday Food Land.
• Contribute something guilt-free for the Holiday table. You will be contributing to others’ wellness, too.
• Tell yourself you are not deprived if you choose not to consume things that have a later “payback”. Think ROI - Return on Investment. If you don’t have to spend time “recovering” when you’d rather spend time enjoying yourself, that’s a good ROI. If you can remain feeling productive so you aren’t adding to your holiday time bank withdrawals, that’s a good ROI. If you tend to catch colds and flu after getting rundown, ROI is a very important consideration for you.
• For extra “shoring up” during the holidays or for New Year health coaching, call 319-277-7444.
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