Oh holidays. You can't live with them and you can't live without them... A dieter's nightmare. How on Earth are you supposed to be eating well portioned, healthy meals when there's a plethora of yummy, sodium and calorie filled goodness less than an arm's length away from you at the dinner table? It's rough, I tell you. Now, I don't consider myself to be on a diet, per say, it's more of a lifestyle adjustment. I've never seen holidays as an issue, but since my New Year's resolution I've begun to see where I've gone wrong. lol Luckily, I've only encountered 2 holidays before realizing, "Hey, you've got to think this through. This is just the beginning of the year."
Easter and Mother's day, two of the holidays which require a family meal, are the only ones that have come and gone thus far. With, now, two family dinners to attend, mine and Matt's family, I'll have to come up with a master plan so that my work thus far can escape unscathed. The thought of holidays and the sheer amount of food normally consumed at these events didn't really sink in until I was 2 seconds away from unbuttoning my jeans during dinner #2 this past Sunday. FAIL We had gone over to my parents' house for a late brunch (called almoço in Brazil) and since we sat down to eat later than scheduled I had worked up quite an appetite. As I always do when I'm famished, I filled my plate with a little bit of everything there was to eat. To top it all off I even had desert. Before I could even finish stuffing my face with the "smallest" portions of desert my mom served me, Matt informed me that his family was just waiting for us to arrive in order to go out to dinner. Eeekk! I shoved the 2 remaining pieces of flan left on my plate and we said our good-bye's.
The ride over to the buffet where we were meeting them is approximately 30 minutes so I took some refuge in the thought that I would be able to digest a portion of the food I had just consumed. Even if it was only 5% of it. ha ha. Unfortunately 5% turned out to be diddly-squat! I placed what would probably hold the world record as the smallest amount of food ever consumed at a buffet on my plate, I made my way to the table and consumed it ever so slowly. I'm still quite unsure how I managed to then squeeze in some dessert. I must have had a serious sweet tooth that day. That day was the closest I've been to a food induced coma in a while. I would rather not do it again, though. ha ha
The following day I woke up with a heavy conscience as well as a heavy gut so I decided to pop in the Turbo Fire 30 minute workout. Since this is my last week of P90X it's just a recovery week and quite frankly wouldn't give me the burn that I'd like. When I got home at night I put in another Turbo Fire workout video. I think I managed to burn off at least 70% of the calories I ate the day before. Yikes!
So armed with this experience I will now have an idea of what I need to work on for the holidays throughout the rest of the year.
#1 MODERATION: if I choose to eat a little bit of everything I'll have to scale down on the portions of each.
#2 Do not place food on the plate while hungry: I'll be sure to regret every bite of it come the second dinner.
#3 Digestion: I'll have to realize when it's time to stop eating my first meal in order to fit the second one just a few hours later.
Those are my rules so far. I can't think of any more right now, especially with my stomach growling. :-/
In conclusion... Holidays are the dieter's kryptonite! ha ha
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