3 Steps to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

This is the time of year when every where you turn there are sweets, parties and holiday networking events. It is hard to stay in control and avoid indulging, particularly when you are stressed or trying to fit so much into your schedule you can hardly find time for a decent meal. Yet you probably don’t want to find yourself in January unable to zip up your pants and wishing you had found a way to control yourself.

The good news is being in control is much easier than you may have thought. Here are 3 steps to avoid weight gain during the holidays so you don’t find yourself a size larger in the new year.

1. Notice What Your Body is Telling You
You can’t change your behavior if you aren’t really paying attention to what you are doing at the time you are doing it, and few people are conscious when they put food in their mouths. Eating is something we do without being aware of whether we are even hungry, if something other than physical hunger is driving us, or even when we have already gotten full and are beginning to feel sick.

Most likely you are eating without even knowing why you are doing it, and the only way to be in control is to start noticing the difference between physical and non-physical hunger. It starts by noticing every single you time you start to get full, and to notice with interest – not judgment. Once you start doing that, you may find you don’t like the way it feels. You can also notice each time to reach for food if you are actually hungry and in need of that food. You may also find in many cases that you aren’t eating for physical hunger. So what are you eating for?

2. Get Curious About Why You Are Really Eating That Food
If you aren’t eating because you need the food, something else is driving you to eat. That doesn’t make you wrong or bad. It just means that your behavior is being driven subconsciously, which makes being in control very difficult when you aren’t aware of what is driving your actions.

The most common drivers during the holidays are Mindless Excess, Ravenous Response, Restricted Rebellion, Emotional Repression and Subconscious Beliefs. These are five of the eight common reasons people overeat that I address in my book Inspired to Feel Good.

Read more about these five common drivers

3. Choose to Eat What Feels Best
The most important thing you can do for yourself during the holidays is to avoid dieting, which is a trigger for rebellious overeating when you inevitably blow it.

Instead, eat because you are hungry and then choose foods that leave you feeling good physically without feeling deprived emotionally. If you pay attention to how your body feels, you will know when you need food, when you’ve had too much and when food doesn’t really agree with you. You may even discover foods you thought you enjoyed don’t actually taste all that good.

Give yourself permission to have foods you love without getting full, and ideally pair the sweets and holiday treats with a balanced meal or snack. That way you will avoid getting sugar rushes and feeling sick. You will also keep your blood sugars and metabolism better balanced, and you will be able to feel the difference. Focus on eating what leaves you feeling good physically and emotionally, and you will be surprised to see you may naturally gravitate to healthier choices and combinations.

Have a great holiday feeling free to enjoy yourself without the guilt or the weight gain!

Take Advantage of Your “Back to School” Urge to Get Back into Shape

So many people find fall a time for getting back down to business, just as kids are doing by returning to school. As often happens this time of year, people are calling me to say that they want to make healthier food choices and get back into shape. They are motivated by the start of a “new year” to ramp up their fitness routine, lose weight and create a healthy diet, and they want to get a jump on the holiday season.

This is a perfect time to respond to that little voice urging you to get moving, eat healthier and take better care of yourself. If you don’t do it now, will the moment pass you by? If you put off the urge to start until October, by letting just one more week turn into just one more month? Will you wait until you find yourself overindulging on Halloween candy, but then think “what’s the point” since the holidays are just around the corner? Many people do, and the next thing they know, it’s New Years and they are feeling fat, uncomfortable and badly about themselves. You don’t have to let that be you!

Decide to take advantage of this time of year, when you feel some motivation to get back into a healthier routine. All you need to do is something small, and let your success at taking one action motivate you to take more small steps. Soon you’ll find you feel so good about yourself and how you feel, that you will stick with your new changes throughout the holidays and New Year’s will just pump you up to see what more you can do.

Inspired to Keep Your Resolutions

How often have you made New Year’s resolutions that you struggle to keep because they were just too much work? I remember making my lists each year of all the things I should change about myself and the things I should start or stop doing. By the end of the first week in January I was always failing to keep up with my expectations, and by the end of January I had given up on my resolutions all together. How often have you had the same experience?

I now do resolutions differently. Instead of focusing on what I should do differently, I focus on picking a few things I would like to experience or do more of in the coming year, and I don’t set a specific date for getting started. I set an intention that I would like specific things to happen and then wait to be inspired to take action. For example, I decided five years ago that I wanted to try Pilates. A few months later I ran into my neighbor, Adrienne who taught Pilates, while doing errands in town. I didn’t know she was teaching Pilates, and I was excited to find out she was working with clients in their homes and didn’t need equipment to do it. This was perfect, and I was inspired to work with her. I loved it, and I’ve been doing Pilates ever since. It wasn’t a struggle; it wasn’t a chore. It was so easy and effortless to get started and stick with it.

Very often, just the act of setting resolutions and feeling excited about a new year can be the inspiration you need to make a change in your life. When I started exercising eight years ago, it was the desire to take advantage of New Year’s that inspired me to make January 1st the date I began my commitment to fitness. There is something inspiring about a new school year or the beginning of the calendar year, and if you feel this way it is the perfect time to take action.

Resolutions and their start dates don’t have to be carved in stone. They can be fluid and adjustable. They can also be chosen to accommodate what you want to experience so they feel good, instead of being a “should” that is measured against a rigid expectation. This year, set yourself up for success instead of disappointment.

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How to Feel in Control Through the Holidays - Open Tele-Program

I’m offering a one hour freebie call – How to Have a Healthier Holiday
Wednesday, November 19th at 8pm ET.

Join me to learn how you can stay in charge of your eating and fitness choices during the holidays.

We will talk about:
~ How to avoid overeating
~ How to deal with temptations
~ What works at a party
~ Strategies for holiday meals
~ Recognizing emotional eating
~ How to fit in fitness activities
~ Creating indoor fitness plans
~ Learning from past holidays

Are you ready to fully enjoy the holidays and to start the New Year feeling great about yourself?

Click here to register for dial-in details.

Get the tips you need to enjoy your holidays with confidence.

Feeling Better in a Bathing Suit

It is that time of year when my female clients are getting bent out of shape because their spouse or boyfriend has booked them a sunny and warm vacation in the Caribbean. It is the last place they want to go they tell me because it means they have to be seen in their bathing suit, and they just aren’t slim enough to put one on. This is becoming an annual discussion I have with clients, because the thought of putting on a swim suit for most women who don’t see their bodies as perfect enough is more unpleasant than the prospect of having a romantic and much needed get away. I don’t know of any man that can relate to this, but I’m sure the majority of women can.

It is an awful feeling to be in public when you think you look positively ridiculous and disgusting squeezed into a piece of spandex. But you don’t have to look squeezed into a suit anymore than you have to feel disgusting or judged for who you are. There are three things you can do to feel differently so you want to jump up and down for joy that you are one of the lucky ones getting away for winter or spring break.

One of them isn’t to go on a quick diet ahead of time. That is the worst thing you can do, because you will set an unrealistic weight loss goal and feel miserable that you didn’t achieve it. You will also deprive yourself on the diet, which will lead to even greater overindulgence and feeling badly while on vacation.

Instead the first thing is to get a suit that fits you properly. Whether you do find a suit that you think is flattering or not, the second thing you can do is pretend you look fabulous anyway. This leads to the third thing you can do, which is to stop caring what other people think.
Once you are armed with your new suit, new attitude and determination not to accept other people’s judgment of how you look, a trip to warmer climates can be relaxing and enjoyable. This week try thinking yourself thin and choosing not to take on anyone’s judgment of you. You may find you have more fun and judge others less in the process.

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Taking Stress Out of the Holidays

Is your calendar full of to-dos, events, parties or travel plans? Any one of these added to your typical weekly schedule is enough to increase your stress level. Oddly enough, many people don’t perceive they are dealing with all that much stress. On a scale of 0 (no stress) to 10 (high stress), what is your level of stress?

You may think you know, but most of us regularly underestimate our stress levels. That is because we adapt to our conditions and gauge chronic stress as a relative measure of what becomes our norm. Chronic stress is an on going, continuous state of stress that comes from putting up with things, overworking, never feeling in control or caught up, worrying and seeing the glass as half empty, not making time for yourself, not taking care of yourself, not sleeping enough, not eating properly and not exercising. You may be dealing with a number of things listed here and taking it all in stride.

Feeling you have to get everything done by a certain date and done just right is a belief that sets the stage for chronic stress. If you don’t succeed in reaching your goals and end up feeling angry, upset or worried, you will further increase your level of stress. Instead you can choose to let go of doing it all and having everything perfect and take a moment to consider your options and what really matters.

What really does matter to you, your family and friends? Is it perfect presents, decorations and food? Or is it having time to visit, enjoying one another, sharing in the celebrations, laughing with loved ones and enjoying the holidays? I have struggled with this issue in the past, and this year I am letting go of the things I realize aren’t all that important. One of my favorite books that gives me needed perspective is Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff… and it is all small stuff by Richard Carlson. This makes a great stocking stuffer or gift in a pinch.

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Avoiding Thanksgiving Day Stuffed

Are you already starting to worry about overeating during the Thanksgiving holiday? It is such a tradition to eat until you are as stuffed as the bird that you may not even realize how full you get. Few escape the need to unbutton their pants or loosen their belts by the end of Thanksgiving Day. Why is that? Let me share three possible explanations you may not have thought of.

First is because we only get this meal once a year. Thanksgiving dinner includes fresh cut turkey, stuffing, pies and all the family recipes that get pulled out for this special occasion. When we finally sit down to dinner we know that this is a one-time thing, not to be repeated for another year. That is a long time, and we feel we have to get it now while we can, because we won’t get it again any time soon. So we sit down to dinner having been deprived of it for the past year and knowing we will be deprived of it again for the upcoming year. This sets the stage for overeating, often to the point of feeling sick. Did this happen to you last year?

Second, the meal takes hours of preparation and we gather ahead of time to socialize, nibble and wait for the big event. During this time we are impatiently waiting and at the same time often bored, doing preparation chores or talking with family members with whom we may not be that fond or we may not have much to say to. So we eat mindlessly to keep our feelings of frustration, boredom or annoyance at bay or to give us a reason for a diversion.

The third explanation is you may be feeling alone and wish you were with family or you are with family and wishing you were somewhere else. This can create emotions that are difficult to address and food is an easy way to push the feelings away. Food is a comfort and a coping mechanism for emotions. Do you anticipate some emotion during the Thanksgiving holiday?

This Thanksgiving be conscious of your hunger levels, find ways not to feel deprived, plan your day so you don’t get to the table filled up on hors d’oeuvres, and recognize if you are having some emotions so you can address them without turning to food. Then enjoy all your favorite things about the holiday meal.

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Handling Halloween Candy Differently

There is always concern about how much candy kids are eating at Halloween, but what about parents who consume nearly half of what the kids are bringing home? Candy is a comfort food for many of us, and when lying around in bowls and bags, it becomes a temptress greater than most adults can resist. Do you find yourself unable to stop when it comes to Halloween candy?

Instead of gearing up for a binge fest and worrying about how you are going to handle having all that candy around the house, consider what is driving you to overeat and crave it and then put some strategies in place to help yourself eat much less of it.

Some of the most common reasons people can’t seem to stop at a few pieces of Halloween candy start with feelings of deprivation.

What does this have to do with deprivation? Everything. When you believe that you shouldn’t have something, you want it all the more. And the more you try to control the urges and deprive yourself, the more you obsess and overdo it when given the chance. This is human nature, and it is easy to see in children. We tend to forget that as adults we aren’t any different. Like kids we rebel against harsh rules and restrictions that are depriving.

Here is a way to have your candy without feeling out of control.

• Pick 2-3 pieces of the candy you like most for greatest satisfaction
• Eat the candy along with one of your meals to minimize high blood sugar levels
• Pay attention to when you start to feel full and stop
• Remind yourself that you can have more at your next meal
• After a few days when your favorites are gone, figure out the best way to get rid of the rest of it.
• You won't miss it because you've let yourself enjoy it
• And you can always get more at the store if you really want more

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