Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Christmas Triggers and Triumphs!

I feel like I'm ready to take on the Holidays. They are here, they're not leaving until January 2nd so I may as well face them head on and do the absolute best that I can. Last night I started thinking about exactly what my big triggers are during the Holidays. What made me gain 5 lbs last year? Why have I had a big gain every year? What tempts me to fall off my plan? Here is a list of my triggers and a plan on how to get past them without adding any extra poundage to my behind!

The Attitude: Ladies, you all know what I'm talking about here. The "It's the Holidays!! Time to indulge!" attitude. The same attitude that gets me into trouble at every single Holiday function. It's only Christmas once a year right? It's only Easter once a year right?? Well guess what?? It's only November 20th once a year too and I'm not indulging today. I'm staying perfectly OP so what's the big deal?

The Plan: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are NOT get out of jail free days. Any calories consumed on these days are just like any other calories eaten on any other day. Eat too much and I WILL feel awful, bloated, and just plain gross. They WILL make the scale go up. My plan is to treat these days like any other OP day. COUNT POINTS. Even though I'll be eating higher point foods and will surely go over my daily target, it's important to stay accountable. Seeing 4 chocolates written down on my journal may prevent me from going for Chocolates 5 through 10.

The Boxes of Chocolate: Honestly these things are like heaven to me. There's nothing better to me than a full box of just opened chocolates. There's so many wonderful chocolates to sample! Who can stop at just one?? It's honestly like a little box of heaven to me. The Christmas before I started WW (2005) I bought 2 boxes of chocolates for presents for Scott's family and ended up eating the WHOLE 2 boxes a few days before Christmas! I even had to unwrap one of them. Ok... both of them. That was painful to admit.

The Plan: Read the labels! Usually boxes of chocolates come with a description for each chocolate. Tells you exactly what they look like and what's inside. I've eaten enough boxes of chocolate to know which ones are my favorites so I'm going to look for that ONE and indulge in ONE chocolate. Just ONE. Granted this might add up to 3 or 4 chocolates over the course of a few days during the Holidays but it's better than eating half the box right??? Also if there are 2 chocolates that I really want to try, I'll ask hubby to split each one with me so I can get a taste of each.

The Hectic Schedule: means no time for activity or the gym. Lots of laying around on the couch chatting with family and watching movies. Lazy, Lazy, Lazy.

The Plan: This one took me a little while to figure out but now it's so obvious! We live about 25 mins from our gym so it's not so easy for us to just run in, workout and run home. It has to be planned out. During the Holidays, every hour is pretty much accounted for with Scott and I. Especially since my Mom is home for Christmas and I try to spend as much time with her as I can. But....MIL has a gym in her basement including a treadmill, a bike and a stepper so while everyone else is laying around on the couch watching TV, I can run downstairs for a little treadmill time and no one will miss me. It will give me more energy and make me feel much better about that Christmas day dessert. Also, COUNT POINTS.

The Dinner: This one has never really been a HUGE problem for me. But I do tend to go a little heavy on the gravy and a little too light on the veggies. And really, those veggies are coated in so much butter that they can hardly be called nutritious.

The Plan: Ask MIL if I can steal my veggies from the pot before the butter and salt gets added to them. That way I can avoid the (totally unnecessary) fat and calories but still fill up my plate with veggies. Also if I put these on my plate first, there will be way less room for stuffing and rolls etc. Also, COUNT POINTS.

The Dessert & Baked Goods: This one is always the absolute toughest for me. It's brutal. I LOVE chocolate plain and simple. Everything chocolate. Anything chocolate. It's all gold to me ladies. This is probably the one I struggle with the most.

The Plan: I need to limit myself before I even walk into MIL's house or SIL's house. I think 2 is more than enough. I will scout out all of the treats available and pick my top 2. Holidays are the time to indulge right? As long as we keep it in moderation. Also, COUNT POINTS.

The Candy & Chocolate Stocking Stuffers: These thing always lay around my house until a weak moment arrives and I end up scarfing down loads and loads of crappy candy that I don't even like very much! Who needs it? Not me!

The Plan: I have asked hubby, MIL and my own Mom to leave the candy and junk out of my stocking this year. No chocolates, no Smartie tubes, no Chocolate marshmallow Santas. I know if makes it a little more difficult for the people who are filling my stockings (yes, I have more than one!) but I don't want that garbage and most of it doesn't even taste that great anyway. Also, COUNT POINTS!

So that's it for me ladies! what are you triggers and how do you plan to master them over the Holidays??

17 comments:

  1. Wow very informative Blogs, I enjoyed reading through it, got some great ideas for snacks :) You done a great job :)

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  2. Very nice!!!!
    I like the candy ideas there. I've already told my husband the two candies that are allowed, and that he is only allowed to purchase one small pack of each for me. Although I may get him a lot. He doesn't eat the same things as me, and can eat whatever he wants without gaining weight.

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  3. yay you! I love this plan! I do slightly disagree with the first holiday attitude thing. I think that's alright if you keep it to the actual holidays, not the whole season. I'm planning on going nuts on the treats and candy on christmas morning and maybe the booze on new years. But other than that, I'll be a good girl. you're totally right though, it's best to just not have that stuff around. I will be regifting much of my candy to hubby or to neice and nephew.

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  4. Carolyn, you're seriously the best planner...and you know what they say, if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. =)

    That said... I'm not really planning! Haha! My holidays don't get as crazy as most people's, my officemates don't bring crap into work, and everyone knows better than to give me candy... So, I just plan to indulge sensibly on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. I'll just ensure that I get in some frequent and killer workouts throughout December.

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  5. Yeeeeeeeah girl! I'll just press print and I'm good to go too! :-) You are so lucky that MIL has all of the gym equipment! Lucky girl - no excuses now!

    Did you make it to the gym last night?

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  6. Sounds like a great plan! I love especially love the part about "scouting the treats"!

    In fact, maybe I'll just have desserts! Yum.

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  7. everything in moderation! and don't buy any candy just for "around the house."

    and my favourite - regifting boxes of chocolate!

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  8. Great post. I think last year, I had fooled around so much in the late fall that I finally just gave up and decided to restart January 2. This year I am determined to finish the year with a BANG and actually lose during the next few weeks. With that determination, I can face anything this year.

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  9. I hope you don't mind, I stumbled across your blog through Shannons.

    I love your holiday plan and I think it's a great one! I think so many things can be factored into the plan and a lot of people just use the "holiday" excuse...which may work when you just consider December 24, 25 and 31 as holidays but now it seems to be the whole month of December plus half of January!!!

    I always "regift" boxes of chocolates or candies or bring them as a hostess gift for any holiday get together or even put them out when my husband has his friends over...they mindlessly munch while playing video games and I can scurry out of sight in the other room or over to my sisters!

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  10. Generally my holiday dinner plan is to skip filler items. I consider these things like mashed potatoes, bread, etc. Things that don't really taste that fantastic in the first place, and have TONS of calories. What's the point. I then transfer these calories to red wine and dessert.

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  11. Great plan Carolyn. I'm going to link this post on my blog page. Fortunately my week ends on Wednesday, so Dec 26 (or 27th) weigh-in may not be stellar, lol. We usually lie low with the kids New Years, so by Jan 2 I should be back on track.

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  12. RYC: I'm on the fence about going tomorrow night. I have to go to my hometown to help my Dad get settled into his new place this weekend and Friday after work is the only chance I'll have to get laundry done etc. So we shall see on that one. Ultimately I would be feeling really good if I made it 3 times a week, because my body still isn't ready to handle more than that yet (b/c of the MVA injuries). My general routine I try is Tues/Thurs and I never go on the weekend because I don't live close to the gym and I'm always on the go somewhere on the weekend too.

    So for this week, I'm happy that I went twice, but I'd be really happy if I manage to make it tomorrow too.

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  13. Great ideas. I think it's really important to make some time for yourself and exercise. Also, getting your family members to help out is probably the best thing you can do. No one needs all that candy, not even the skinny members of the family.

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  14. I love your plan! Getting through the holidays doesn't have to be so hard, right?!

    HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! :)

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  15. Carolyn, I think the Waffles are Kellogg's Fibre. The writing on the box is pink. They're whole wheat and I'm pretty sure they're 2pts/waffle, but I haven't calculated it in a while.

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  16. RYC: The doc told me the same thing today about my test last year, she said that it wasn't a good enough sample. But no one told me and I never got another one! This time she said she was using a different instrument that would work better (maybe that was TMI lol)

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  17. Thanks for the fantastic post! I just linked to it in my blog. I need to sit down and formulate my own plan. Thanks again for the inspiration.

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