How was your Christmas/Holiday Break?
I hope it was a good family time for you.
But if you’re anything like me, it might be a challenge to get back on track with eating clean!!!
Even though I find it easier year over year to not let myself go so far off track each Christmas, food can still be such an addictive process for me that I need to put some willpower into getting myself back on the rails. It feels like having to hang up the reins and kiss goodbye to the reindeer, so I no longer need or have to eat all those milk and cookies:)!
Although for me it’s not milk and cookies. It’s chocolate, wine and liqueurs, like Baileys:)! Anything with wheat has long lost it’s attraction. If not I’d have had one of those almond croissants my nephew had at the French Patisserie we went to for breakfast. I’m glad that addiction has gone.
Have you become more aware of your trigger foods this Christmas? Was it wheat? Sugar? Alcohol? ______? ______?
You don’t have to respond to me but please do make some personal notes so you can learn what works for you by writing your answers to these questions down and keeping them somewhere that you can refer to them as often as you need.
Remember – food can be used as a fix or to fix yourself up. You get to choose:).
Here are the steps that have seen me through Christmas and that I’ll be applying to bring myself more back in line with myself.
1. Keeping my eating window down. For me 11am-7/8pm works fine. Apart from a few late nightcaps I managed to do this pretty well over Christmas. I also had a couple of times when I didn’t eat till 1pm to make up for the nights before.
What have you found works for you? Do you work best on a shorter eating window or a longer one? Maybe you need to do a 1 or 2 day fast to kickstart yourself in the right direction?
2. Making decisions that support me. Yesterday was the first day without 1-3 drinks (wine or Baileys) since Dec 22, our anniversary. It’s time to be back to my normal pattern of just 1 or 2 nights a week.
What decision would be good for you to support yourself with right now?
3. Staying under my carb tolerance level. On a loose count I’ve probably been on about 50-60gms a day over Christmas. Still low carb compared to what’s considered “normal” but it’s outside my carb tolerance. Back to <20-30gms tomorrow. Writing them down every time I eat or drink something really helps me to stay on track with that. So I’ve printed off a sheet and will carry that through for a week. That’s long enough to get me back.
Would counting carbs be a good idea for you? How long a time frame do you think?
4. Progress & Fun. For me I decided this year was going to be about exercise. It’s something in the past I’ve tended to let slip and forget about. This year I’m playing with the idea of being the kind of person who loves exercising on a daily basis. So far so good. On the days that I haven’t been mowing lawns or chainsawing and chopping trees I’ve been doing pushups, stomach crunches and I’ve figured out how to do some chin ups with the bars of our chair hammocks.
Is there something you want to change in 2017? Some way you’d rather be or explore being? What do you need to let go of to let the you, that you want to be, come through? And what will you get to enjoy by being that person?
5. How are you going to support yourself to follow through? Are you the kind of person that can manage their own motivation and truly follow through on this? Or would it be helpful to have a friend, buddy or a mentor to hold you accountable?
Before you decide, think about the stats on that:
In a study it was found that:
Just saying what you want gives you a 6% chance of achieving it.
Both saying it AND writing it down jumpstarts you to a 33% chance.
Saying what you want, writing it down AND telling someone what you are going to achieve, leapfrogs you to 59%. Amazing how many of us don’t like losing face with someone:)!
The best? Saying what you want, writing it down, telling someone AND holding yourself accountable to them, will accelerate your chances of achieving what you say you want to 89%. That’s getting close to 100%!
For more information on how to enjoy the journey of accountability, plus an extended version of the list above and a conference call that was recorded on this: 9 Strategies That Work For Weight/Body Fat Loss.
Thank you for the tips and weekly food diary – I had to save it to my comp and then print off but will help heaps. Bless you.
Thanks for the reminders D. Got myself into some late night snacking which I need to clean up on!
So appreciate your help. Txx