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  #1   ^
Old Sun, Nov-22-09, 04:41
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Demi Demi is offline
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Default Holiday Maintenance Skills ~ How Do You Intend to Stay on Track?

Although I have already posted this blog post in the Refuse to Regain thread, I thought that I would also post it here as a separate thread.

In her post, Barbara is asking what skills or tricks others might use for getting through the holidays, and I thought that it might be a good idea for us to share and post ours here too.


Quote:
November 21, 2009

A Skillful Holiday to All

By Barbara Berkeley


Negotiating success in maintenance reminds me of so many things: balancing on a bongo board, walking a tightrope, learning to sprint on tiptoe through a vast field of food, negotiating a temptation-jungle with blinders on. We tame the hungry lion with nothing more than our wits. We balance on the tip of a skyscraper-high food pyramid and all the while…we dance.

Maintainers are artists. They are skilled professionals. Their tricks and focus put others to shame. Don’t try this at home. Maintainers are the Cirque du Soleil of the diet world.
Like the final act of any circus, the end of the food year is our crucible, our most daring trick.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas, it will all be thrown at us. The cocoa, the cookies, the emotion, the cinnamon, the chocolate, the tear-jerker movies, the alcohol. We will need to somersault, leap and dodge in order to avoid being annihilated. And who will be triumphant? Not the most virtuous. Not even the most deserving. The ones left taking the final bow will be the most skilled.

I am now entering my sixth year of Primarian eating. Tonight, I prepare myself like a gladiator getting ready for battle. I sharpen my swords, I gird myself, I imagine the inevitable pumpkin-scented opponent. I am determined to remain standing at the end of it all. Are you preparing too?

My skills? Nothing fancy. Sometimes it’s mastery of the most basic techniques that gets a maintainer the furthest. So here are some of the skills I’ve practiced over and over. Hopefully, they are routine by now, ready for deployment as the year’s food circus comes to a close with its final eating lollapalooza:

1. The Old Scan and Plan: Don’t ever get caught in a corner. You should know what’s coming and have a plan to counterpunch. Imagine each holiday situation in as much detail as you can way before it ever happens. Plot a course through the food challenges. When the day comes, mentally check off each situation as you enact your plan. It’s your private game.

2. The Switcheroo: Everyone’s there for the food. Except you! Switch your reason for being at the dinner, family gathering, office party. You’re there to gather information by finding out at least one thing you never knew about five people in the room. You’re there to advance your career by finding someone at the party who can give you a lead. You’re there to see how many people you can get to ask you about your weight loss and how you did it. You’re there to change someone’s life by inspiring them to eat healther, be more like you. Set a goal. Keep track.

3. The Stare Down: For advanced maintainers only! For the true gladiator, there’s nothing more enjoyable than challenging yourself to a direct face-off with the food that used to control you. If you’ve passed the invisible barrier that separates maintenance junior (early maintainer) from SLIM (senior level maintainer), you might enjoy this trick, which is the equivalent of facing down a lion with nothing more than your expression. Go to the table, look at everything, and laugh. A good, loud, internal “HAH!” and a head toss help a lot.

4. The Dress for Success: Wear your best looking and most form fitting clothes. Let them talk to you as you negotiate that dangerous territory. The pressure of snug clothing will remind you of what your body has achieved and prevent you from filling up.

5. The Bring Your Own: A good trick for buffets, pot lucks and other challenges too. Bring a safe dish and make it something you can really load up on if there is little else that fits your rules. Generally, these clean, simple dishes go fast. After all, everyone recognizes healthy food…even if they don’t want to admit it.

There are lots of other tricks I use, but enough about me. Do you have holiday skills? Send them in. Tag them with a punchy name and include a short description. Let’s share the wealth! You’re not dancing alone, you’re not fighting alone, you’re not balancing alone. You’re part of a growing acrobatic troupe. A veritable army of skilled maintainers. Are you ready for the challenge? If so, I salute you!

“Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good FIGHT!” http://refusetoregain.com/refusetor...day-to-all.html

Last edited by Demi : Sun, Nov-22-09 at 07:15.
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  #2   ^
Old Sun, Nov-22-09, 07:33
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Here's one of mine that I used successfully last year:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Demi on 17 December, 2008
I managed to get through the Christmas buffet without a problem. I put a few items on a plate, including some celery sticks, which I nibbled on. I left the rest, and threw it away later when no one was paying any attention. As I said before, if people 'think' you're eating something, then they tend to leave you alone.


I think that Sleight of Hand would be a good name for it!
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  #3   ^
Old Tue, Dec-01-09, 07:16
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camaromom camaromom is offline
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I always bring something that I know is legal. That way at least there is at least one thing for me to eat. I also have been known to pack a lunch box of food so just in case I find myself with little or no food to eat I don't have to be deprived. I just wait until I get into my car and nosh!
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Old Thu, Nov-25-10, 10:28
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Just thought that it might be an idea to bump this thread
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  #5   ^
Old Thu, Nov-25-10, 10:53
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Judynyc Judynyc is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Demi
Just thought that it might be an idea to bump this thread

Good bump Demi!!
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  #6   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 03:44
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A great article from Dr Judith Beck, author of The Beck Diet Solution, over at the Huffington Post:

Quote:
Healthy Eating: Maintain Your Weight Despite Holiday Stress

Most of the dieters whom I treat overeat when they're feeling stressed or experiencing a negative emotion such as anxiety, sadness, anger, shame and so on. They often have one or both of the following unhelpful ideas:

"There's nothing I can do to calm down when I'm upset."

"I deserve to eat when I'm upset."

As long as they hold beliefs like these, they will remain vulnerable to regaining the weight they have lost. They need to change their thinking. They need to learn how to accept and tolerate negative feelings and how to cope with stress in more healthy ways.

Katie, a dieter whom I saw last year, had been doing so well initially. Early on, she was highly motivated and was able to stay on track, even when she was upset. When she became upset, she would tell herself, "No choice. It's not time to eat. I can't eat now." She would turn her attention to something else, her negative feelings would slowly subside, and she'd feel proud that she had stuck to her plan.

But then Katie went through a particularly stressful period. Her father was hospitalized. Her youngest child started having problems in school. She got a new supervisor at work who was making unreasonable demands on her. Katie continued to follow her eating plan throughout each day. But come 9 p.m., when her children were in bed, the permission granting beliefs above led to Katie's consuming "all the carbs I can get my hands on," until she went to sleep. She quickly started regaining the 22 pounds she had lost. She was frustrated and angry at herself but couldn't seem to stop.

First, Katie and I did some problem solving. As soon as she got her kids in bed, she would decompress by doing deep breathing and then she'd have a cup of herbal tea. Next, we did some cognitive work. Following our discussion, Katie composed messages on index cards which she was to read each day after work, just before she walked in the house. She was to read them again as she was sipping her tea. This is what Katie's cards said:
"If I want to lose weight permanently, I have to stop eating when I'm upset -- every time. People without weight problems don't eat when they're upset. They either tolerate their negative emotions, or try to solve the problem, or call a friend, or take a walk, or go online, or read a magazine, or watch television. But they don't eat."

"Negative emotions are uncomfortable but not dangerous. I don't have to "fix" them. I've had lots of times when I've felt very upset, but I haven't eaten. I've never exploded or lost control. The worst thing that will happen if I don't eat is that my distress will peak and then the intensity of my emotions will go down. "

"If I eat, I'll be temporarily distracted from my distress, but whatever problem led to my distress in the first place will still be there and then I'll also have the problem of feeling badly that I ate and I'll really feel badly when I see that the scale has gone up."

Katie also started back on day one of the cognitive behavioral program for weight loss and maintenance so she could sharpen her skills of re-motivating herself, gaining confidence by giving herself credit, tolerating cravings and getting back on track immediately when she made a mistake. The incidence of her eating for emotional reasons declined sharply. She slipped a few times, but the challenge became easier and easier as time went on.

The chance that Katie will be able to maintain her weight loss into the future has increased.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judit...i_b_788010.html
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  #7   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 03:51
Fat Freddy Fat Freddy is offline
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If I can take the liberty of copying an article across from my own blog? This is more for losers rather than maintainers (though there's another recent post where I ponder maintenance issues, though not with a specifically festive bent).



Christmas Is A-coming - Make Sure It's Only The Goose That's Getting Fat!


OK, so what's your Christmas / New Year food strategy?

If you haven't planned this out, then you're heading for a fall when you eventually manage to hoist your excessive bulk back on the scales sometime toward the end of January.

Now, there's no excuse, because you already know what happens over the festive season so far as food and drink are concerned. It would be downright dishonest to pretend otherwise, and to later complain that you'd somehow been taken by surprise, when the scales crack apart beneath you.

So this is what you have to do....

Devise a simple schedule of where you're going to be that's a festive event and will present you with food and drink choices over and above the quotidian.

Then write in against each of these events precisely what - and how much, because portion control is vital here - you will allow yourself to ingest, taking account of the parameters determined by your individual diet.

For instance, as a low-carber, I shall be having turkey with sprouts (which I love anyway) cauliflower and braised celery, but eschewing the carrots, and making do with just one roast potato (when I could easily eat the lot). I'll not be allowing that to happen any more and my meal will be a good, healthy and hearty plateful nonetheless, which I shall relish it. I'll not be drinking, but that's because I don't. I can't remember seeing too much low-carb booze about, mind.

Now, having determined what the festive bit is going to be, you've then just got to give thought to the rest of the day and decide how you need to adjust your usual routine, and what you can sensibly allow yourself for your other meals. You need to think about this in order to avoid destroying your diet and undoing the good work you've put in up to now.

Write the eating plan down, and don't allow yourself to be deflected.

You know you're worth it - even at Christmas. Let everybody else outstrip you in the trencherman stakes this year. It's OK, you'll be able to relax things and cut yourself some slack in twelve months time, because you'll be at your target weight, you'll have come to understand and accept the importance of portion control, and you'll have learned precisely how to redress the little weight variations that will inevitably creep in, particularly at times like this.

So, you put on five or six pounds over the holidays? Then you go abstemious for a couple of weeks and take it off again, because you know how to.

Putting on five or six pounds does not mean that the rule book's been torn up so you can just pile it all on again! It means you apply the sensible disciplines of abstention before you revert to the everyday disciplines of maintenance.

All you have to do is be conscious of your actions, and accept that you are entirely accountable for them.

I know it's simple and obvious but it's effective. It really works. And I just think it's far better to plan than to unthinkingly fall off the wagon in the way I discussed in the Boot Camp earlier today.

So get out the pad of A4, a couple of pens and a ruler, and your diary, and plan your festive feeding now. It will save you so much self-loathing later, because that's something we really know about, and we ought to know it's a good and, in this case easy, thing to avoid.
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  #8   ^
Old Mon, Dec-13-10, 06:07
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Demi Demi is offline
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Another good strategy to use for not overdoing it during the holidays, courtesy of Dr Briffa:

Quote:
Primal diet found to be more satisfying than a Mediterranean one

Posted By John Briffa On 13 December 2010

For many of us, this time of year brings with it generally greater opportunity to eat more than is strictly necessary. While I do not particularly believe in sacrifice or deprivation, I do think it’s useful to be aware of strategies that can be used to prevent over-consumption of food and drink with ease and, importantly, without hunger. And one approach that tends to reap dividends here is focusing on eating a diet that sates the appetite most effectively.

For a given number of calories, not all types of food sate the appetite to the same extent. While many factors can play a part here, two factors that appear to be particularly important are the protein content of food and its glycaemic index (the speed and extent to which it disrupts blood sugar levels). Generally speaking, protein is the most sating element of the diet, and lower GI foods are more sating than those of higher GI. I wrote about this most recently here, where I reported on a study which suggests that higher-protein, lower-GI diets are best for those seeking to keep weight off once they’ve lost it.

One type of diet that fulfils these criteria is a Paleolithic or ‘primal’ diet, essentially a ‘hunter-gatherer’ diet based on foods eaten prior to the introduction of relatively novel foods including grains and dairy products. Such a diet would include meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables. Most people who revert to this sort of diet find themselves generally well-sated by food, to the extent that they eat less than they ordinarily do without any undue hunger. The usual result? Weight loss (where there is weight to lose) without pangs of hunger that gnaw at the resolve. In short, such a diet generally makes successful weight loss sustainable.

I was interested to read a recent study in which the appetite-sating properties of a Paleolithic diet were pitted against a Mediterranean diet in men [1]. The Paleolithic diet emphaised lean meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, root vegetables, eggs and nuts. The Mediterranean diet was based on wholegrains, low-fat dairy products, vegetables, fruit, fish, vegetable oils and margarine. Study participants were able to eat as much as they liked of the foods available to them. The study lasted 12 weeks.

Left to their own devices, individuals eating the Paleolithic diet ate an average of 1385 calories per day. The Mediterranean diet eating group, on the other hand, ate an average of 1815 calories per day. Both groups were similarly sated. The interpretation? The Paleo diet, for a given number of calories, was significantly more sating than the Mediterranean diet.

This finding, I think, is utterly in line with the experiences of individuals I describe above, who when they shift to a primal diet find themselves less hungry and less in need of food quite naturally.

There can be a tendency at this time of year to cut back on food at certain times of the day (breakfast is a classic time for this) in an effort to balance out expected excesses at other times (e.g. lunch and dinner). I don’t recommend this at all. In fact, I encourage the opposite approach: eat enough of the right foods to ensure that we’re not ravenous before meals which makes it easy to eat moderately, particularly of not-so-healthy foods. A good ‘primal’ start to the day might be some eggs, perhaps with some smoked salmon, and maybe some mushrooms and tomatoes. Such a breakfast, coupled with some nuts in between meals if necessary, will usually ensure that we can enjoy whatever festive foods are available, with little or no tendency to overeat.

References:

1. Jonsson T, et al. A Paleolothic det is more satiating per calorie than a Mediterranean-like diet in individuals with ischemic heart disease. Nutr Metab (Lond) 2010;30(7):85 [epub ahead of print]
http://www.drbriffa.com/2010/12/13/...iterranean-one/
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  #9   ^
Old Wed, Dec-15-10, 04:15
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Demi Demi is offline
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I received the following in an email newsletter from Cassandra Forsythe and thought I'd share it here.

Quote:
The Ultimate Holiday Survival Guide Nutrition Checklist

Use the following nutrition checklist to stay on track during the holidays.

For each of the 10 NUTRITION standards you meet in the checklist below, you earn ONE point (i.e., 1 point for yes, 0 point for no).
If your goal is to maintain your weight during the holidays, then you MUST achieve at least 5 total points each week.
If your goal is to reduce your weight and lose body fat during the holidays, then you MUST achieve at least 8 total points each week.


1. Did you say NO at least 90% of the time when the candy dish or plate of cookies was passed around the office or your workplace?

2. Instead of bringing a dessert or candy to work for everyone to enjoy, did you bring something healthier like a veggie or fruit platter with a healthy dip? Make sure it's festive - Use those green, red, orange and white veggies and fruits!

3. Did you skip the bread and breaded appetizers at holiday dinners and parties? Remember, bread and flour products are useless carbohydrates devoid of good nutrition.

4. Have you told yourself that sugar and sweet treats will kill you? Avoid eating sweet treats by eating protein: see Curb Sugar Cravings below*

5. Did you eat healthy, balanced meals containing protein, whole carbohydrates and fats the day of a holiday party instead of starving yourself and "saving" your calories?

6. Did you stay away from alcohol at 90% of your holiday events? Remember: alcohol causes your body to store fat and not be able to burn fat, and when you add sugar to it, it makes it even more detrimental.

7. Did you stick to mostly protein and veggies at holiday dinners and parties?

8. If you have to bake holiday treats over the next two months, did you bake something low in sugar and high in fiber, protein and healthy fat? Remember that artificial sweetened foods are not any better. Stick with less real sugar or use Stevia and you're body will look better.

9. If you can't exercise due to holiday commitments, did you keep your carbohydrate intake lower and focus mostly on proteins, vegetables and some fruits?

10. If you know you're going to eat more carbs than your body needs at a holiday event, did you plan this into a carb cycling routine? The day before, eat a lower carb diet, and then the day following, eat a no carb diet. Give yourself an extra point for performing an intense workout.


*
Curb Sugar Cravings With This Powerful Nutrient


By Cassandra Forsythe PhD, RD

It’s unfortunate, but for some reason, our society associates almost all festive occasions with candy and chocolate. From Valentines to Easter to Birthdays to Halloween, at every single one of these events, you’re faced with the one thing that’s keeping you out of your skinny jeans:

Sugar

Yes, that’s right. One of the most insulting and damaging food items to our waistlines (and health) is sugar.

But it’s everywhere. Especially so whenever anyone is celebrating anything at all.

You love someone? Say it with chocolate!
You believe in the Easter Bunny? He brings baskets of sugar and trans fat to every girl and boy. Oh joy!

Not really.

Sugary treats, like all the candy you’ll stuff your trick or treat bag with are the enemies of your body. Not only do they make you eat more sugar, but they cause your body to store it all as fat (unless you exercise a lot and only eat a little… but who does that?)

Candy and chocolate are nice to have, but often lead to overeating and guilt. Unless you know you can have one or two pieces and stop there, it’s best to just stay away.

But, how do you stay away? What can you do to prevent yourself from picking all your favorite treats out of your child’s goody bag?

Eat protein.

And, even better, drink a whey protein smoothie.

That’s right – whey protein has been shown in countless scientific investigations to promote satiety and prevent overeating better than most any other food.

Researchers from the Netherlands have even shown that it is a specific protein in whey that has the satiety-promoting effects. This protein is known as alpha-lactalbumin and is essential to your fat-loss goals.

But, to get alpha-lactalbumin, you just need to drink a complete whey protein smoothie and you’re all set.

Also, whey protein boosts diet-induced thermogenesis, which means it’ll help you burn more calories just by eating it.

References:
Br J Nutr. 2010 Mar;103(5):775-80. Epub 2009 Oct 29.
Effects of a breakfast yoghurt, with additional total whey protein or caseinomacropeptide-depleted alpha-lactalbumin-enriched whey protein, on diet-induced thermogenesis and appetite suppression.
Hursel R, van der Zee L, Westerterp-Plantenga MS.
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Old Sun, Jun-12-11, 07:40
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Demi Demi is offline
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A bit early, I know, but I've just come across this article which also contains a short video featuring Dr Berkeley:

Quote:
Weight Management Tips from Dr. Barbara Berkeley

Barbara Berkeley, M.D. is the author of Refuse to Regain!: 12 Tough Rules to Maintain the Body You’ve Earned! She is a board-certified internist who specializes in work with the obese and overweight. In the video above, she shares weight management tips for avoiding holiday season weight gain. The strategies will work for any challenging time — picnics and barbecues in the summer, etc. — whether your maintaining your weight or losing weight.

Dr. Berkeley says that while weight gain is not inevitable during the holiday season, studies have shown that weight gain is to be a pound or two for people of normal weight. For overweight and obese people, who are more than 60 percent of the population, the weight gain is an average of five pounds or more. The vast majority don’t lose those excess pounds.

The biggest mistake we make is what she calls the Scarlett O’Hara mistake — I’ll think about it tomorrow. We make exceptions to the normal way we eat and think about it tomorrow. But tomorrow brings weight gain. She says another mistake people make is tasting things, but these calories can be significant and add up; for instance taste of cranberry sauce can be 60 calories, pecan pie as much as 130 calories.

She lays out a very clear strategy to follow during holidays. It’s applicable year round, as we are often confronted with social settings that center around food that may challenge us in weight management.

Weigh yourself daily. You have to know what your weight is to know whether or not you are gaining, losing or maintaining.

Have a plan in going to social settings. This means knowing what foods you will avoid.

Don’t let alcohol make your food choices for you. With alcohol consumption comes lessening of inhibition and decisions that come from poor judgment putting you at risk to overeat.

Avoid foods with sugar and starches. Too many calories can be consumed too easily.

Pass on dessert or — if you are able to do so – allow yourself only three bites.

Set a simple goal. Maintain the same weight. If there is any change in your weight, work on reducing the gain on days that you are not out socializing or at parties.

Put yourself in a situation in which you don’t need willpower — in other words avoid being around food as it causes primal responses in the body that can make it difficult to resist, as documented extensively in Dr. David Kessler’s book The End of Overeating. If you are in a party where there is food, go to someplace where you are not near the food.

And of course, as we know we can separate ourselves from the food, but then we may have to deal with those who are insistent that we eat something. She suggests being upfront and saying you can’t eat for medical reasons if you’ve got health challenges such as hypertension. Or, if needed, tell a white lie if you are pressured to eat such as saying you have an upset stomach.

I was glad to find Dr. Berkeley’s book and learn about her approach. The rules are very clear and direct, but of course, we must commit to following them. I find that contemplating the alternative helps; even having to lose five to ten unwanted pounds would be bad enough, let alone allowing the scale to keep on creeping upwards. Maybe weighing yourself daily can lead to “scale trauma,” but on the other hand it can be a powerful deterrent to weight gain which, let’s face it would be a lot worse!

There is not a lot written about weight management, as we are bombarded with so many diets to lose weight that have clever names and gimmicks. Even if they work, we must move to the next phase, keeping it off.
http://www.skinnybliss.com/weight-m...a-berkeley.html
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Old Sun, Oct-23-11, 14:33
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freckles freckles is offline
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What a great thread, Demi! Thanks for telling me about it!

Thought I'd bump it by sharing what I plan to do to keep myself on track this year:

I am planning our holiday meals ahead and testing lc recipes before hand to make sure they are good and will work for us.

I will be making lc baked goods to have on hand in the freezer so that if I am tempted with any hc treats I will have an acceptable alternative.

I will take a dish I can eat to any outside parties. I will also have my little ice chest filled with acceptable foods that I can sneak off and eat or eat after the event if necessary.

I will of course weigh every day. And I will hold myself accountable by participating in these forums.

That's all I've got for now.

I've only ever made it through one holiday season staying lc - the first one back in 2003. Ever since then I indulged. Some years I was able to get it together afterward, but most years not. For that reason I feel that it is crucial for me to make it through this year unscathed. By that I mean saying no to anything that isn't lc. I'd be okay with a <small> gain due to over-indulging in lc stuff. Maybe that's naive....but for me it's saying no that is the most important this year.
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Old Wed, Oct-26-11, 11:29
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Demi Demi is offline
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Although I've already posted this in the Refuse to Regain thread, I think it is also very appropriate for this Holiday Maintenance Skills thread too.


Quote:
October 26, 2011

Halloween to New Year's Day: Joy, Anxiety and Overeating

by Barbara Berkeley, MD



Why do we eat?

In the America of 2011, we eat for the same reasons we buy new TVs, redo our kitchens or replace our perfectly functional cars. We eat not because we need to, but because we can. Eating is cheap, pleasurable and soothing. It's kind of an adult "blankie".

With that in mind, let's look at when we need a blankie most. We want to be soothed when we are stressed, when we are reminded of unhappy memories, when the skies are dark, when winter descends, when we feel tired and overwrought.

In the America of 2011, a supermarket is like a wonder-world of shiny new toys, each one affordable and promising a thrill. The packages say "Fun! Fun!Fun!" while the labels say, "Heart Healthy" and "Cholesterol Free". It's ok to be seduced, it's ok to give in. Heck, it's even virtuous.

Combine these two stimulants to eating and you have the dangerous food period between Halloween and January 1st. As the skies darken (at least in Ohio) and the leaves fall from the trees leaving depressing skeletons, the food intensity ratchets up. Seasonal foods make their appearance. Starbucks puts peppermint back on the menu, along with gingerbread. Cooking magazines, newspapers and food channels exhort us to bake, bake, bake...as if this will somehow stave off our anxiety. As we get older, the holidays remind us more and more about our own mortality. They are still a wonderful time, but we remember how many of these holidays there have been and how many of those we loved are now gone. Our kids may have grown up and live far away. They return for the holidays, but no matter what we do, we can't return to the time when they ran down the front steps dressed as ghosts and princesses. We compare today's holidays to those past and to the celebrations of others. Anything that reminds us of the passage of time tends to make us introspective and unsettled.

So...let's eat! Let's drink!

How do we successfully negotiate such a difficult period and not regain? The answer lies in creative thinking. Maintaining a new, healthier body requires a new, refreshed look at life. Instead, most of us tend to repeat the same patterns. Left unexamined and unchallenged, life tends to break people down. But it doesn't have to. If you as an individual keep creating, keep innovating and keep expanding, the things life removes will have a lesser impact. You will be more expansive.

Here are some questions for those who want to maintain from now until 2012:

Do you REALLY need to bake this year? If baking gets you out of control, are you willing to take the daring step of experimenting and letting someone else make the cookies, cakes and pies? What would happen?

Suppose you didn't have a single piece of Halloween candy this year? Would your life be different? Or would it be the candy manufacturers who suffered most?

Imagine that you designed a completely Primarian plan for Thanksgiving and decided that you would fill you plate with turkey, salad, veggies and maybe a dab of cranberry sauce. Suppose you vowed not to have dessert this year, except for coffee and fruit. Would your enjoyment of Thanksgiving be less?

Suppose that you decided to do something really radical this year and ban non-Primarian foods from your home over the holidays. Suppose that you decided to give yourself a much bigger gift than that new IPhone you've been eyeing? Imagine that you daringly and creatively decided to stick with a primal eating plan with extremely minimal starches and sugars. Would you have lost an entire year of holiday joy?

I can answer these questions because these are changes that I made personally almost 10 years ago. Here are the answers.

The holidays are just the same. It's still great to see everyone and it's still sad to miss Uncle Monroe, Uncle Aaron and Aunt Ellie. It's still great fun to smell the peppermint and have an occasional gingerbread latte (with Splenda). It's still a thrill to see the holiday decorations go up and to enjoy the lights, the music and the sentiments. It's still wonderful to eat dinners with friends and family, and not a soul cares that I don't have the brownies or the stuffing.

And here's what's different. For the past ten years I have not had to worry about my weight, my blood pressure, my blood sugar or my cholesterol. My weight and health have allowed me to live so much more creatively...running, spinning, tennis. Sometimes I'm just so grateful that I can easily squat down and pick up something I dropped. Alot of people my age can no longer do something so simple. Being lean and eating the right foods means that you are quicker and more efficient in every way. My brain works better without the S Foods, which means that I can take up Chess, learn how to use Twitter and blog to the point where you are probably sick of me.

These are the greatest gifts.

So as you approach the holiday season, think bold. Uphold your chosen eating plan..whatever that may be. Consider the possibility that our holiday eating may be motivated less by happiness and tradition than by habit and anxiety. Enjoy and celebrate by continuing on your journey of self-creation. To life!
http://refusetoregain.com/refusetor...overeating.html
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  #13   ^
Old Wed, Oct-26-11, 16:38
FowlFiend's Avatar
FowlFiend FowlFiend is offline
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Posts: 638
 
Plan: General LC (was Atkins)
Stats: 168/145.8/155 Female 5 feet 9 inches
BF:32%/24%/?
Progress: 171%
Location: Rocky Mountains
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For the holidays, I am going to have my camera in my hands and be occupied with taking photos of my loved ones! It's a more lasting reward than food in the end.

Besides, after being seriously ill from carbs, the urge to gorge on them is just not there. Its like ipecac for me. KAK!!

... and thanks to this thread, I have an idea of why my protein shakes seem to make me lose weight! I just need to figure out an egg nog variant, and I'm all set until next year!

Awesome!!
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  #14   ^
Old Wed, Oct-26-11, 19:02
aj_cohn's Avatar
aj_cohn aj_cohn is offline
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Posts: 3,948
 
Plan: Protein Power
Stats: 213/167/165 Male 65 in.
BF:35%/23%/20%
Progress: 96%
Location: United States
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I can deal with the holidays regarding food for myself, but I'm torn about whether to give out candy to Halloween trick-or-treaters. I don't know how avoid them: I live in an apt. complex with solid doors and outdoor lighting that comes on automatically at night. Perhaps I should count on the adults accompanying the kids to read a "no trick-or-treaters" sign on my door.

I feel bad for not participating in an American tradition, but it's so destructive to kids' health that I can't.
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  #15   ^
Old Wed, Oct-26-11, 20:11
FowlFiend's Avatar
FowlFiend FowlFiend is offline
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Posts: 638
 
Plan: General LC (was Atkins)
Stats: 168/145.8/155 Female 5 feet 9 inches
BF:32%/24%/?
Progress: 171%
Location: Rocky Mountains
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Give out an apple or healthy treat! Or toothbrushes... The tradition can and should change.
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