Strategies for the holiday dinner.

In our culture it is just ridiculous to be counting calories over the holidays. I have read websites where they give you tips such as stay away from the buffet table, don't take gravy, skip the desert. But when I do that, people start asking me if I have anorexia. I just prefer to eat whatever I want at the holiday dinner. But remember if you do that you are probably eating your entire days calories in one meal. There are two strategies that I recommend, fasting before the holiday dinner or fasting afterwards. The fasting before is probably easiest, fasting afterwards would be more difficult because you would have to eat less calories the following day to account for the extra calories consumed the day before. If you have practiced fasting beforehand you will have experience in making it through a fast before you attempt the pre-holiday dinner fast. The day of the holiday dinner if you wake up and have a really light breakfast and then go all day without eating, you will be able to enjoy the holiday dinner to its full extent without having to worry about the extra calories. The problem with most people is that they have a normal day and then add the extra calories to that day later on at the holiday dinner. You put on part of a pound that way, but if you never work to take it off, it will always be there. That is how the pounds creep up over the years. You could do that and just return to a week of your "weight loss" diet, if you are currently on a "weight maintenance" plan. But you have to be experienced to remember how to switch back and forth from the two plans, "maintenance" vs. "weight loss." Holiday eating doesn't have to be stressful as long as you have a plan.

The typical North American dinner has a lot of calories!

I did some research on the typical North American dinner and too my surprize most websites listed 800 - 1000cals. Wow. My BMR is only 1250 cals, no wonder women my age gain weight slowly over the years. I haven't specifically sat down and calculated the calories that I am eating for my meals but chances are, I am pretty close to 1000 calories, and I eat fairly healthy. I eat mostly fruit, veggies and meat at dinner, and maybe a small amount of starchy carbs. This isn't really a problem, but you have to be careful how many calories you are consuming early in the day. If you eat close to 1000calories before dinner, then you could be struggling with losing weight if your dinners are adding up to 1000 calories. Also another thing to be aware of is that most men can eat more than women because they have a higher BMR. My husband does all the cooking and when he measures out a portion for me, it is usually the same size as his. Sometimes I will load up my own plate instead. In a later blog I will discuss how to deal with the dreaded holiday dinner which goes over 1000 calories for most of us, especially if we have desert.

Love your diet!

Remember the post where I discussed that you should never follow another person's diet and instead you should write your own? Well this is true, and for a diet to work you have to write one that you love. In other words including all the foods you love to eat. For example, if you love cheesies, they should be on your diet! Maybe not everyday, and I also caution, that I would choose the baked ones because you can eat more of them because they have less calories. Remember you are allotted a certain number of calories a day, so you have to measure out the cheesies so you know exactly how many calories you are eating. Now I am sure there are those of you out there that are saying, but I won't just stop at one bowl, I will eat the whole bag. That is part of the challenge of dieting, is learning how to eat-stop-eat. You will get to eat another bowl of cheesies later in the week, so learn to wait for them. If you sit down and "be present" with the bowl you have then you will have a better chance of stopping once you are finished. Remember we are set up to "overeat" in our society. If you are really struggling with putting the bag away, then find a convenience store that sells individual servings and just go to the store and buy the single serving bag when your diet calls for it. That way you can't overeat the whole large bag.
Now for me, I don't have cheesies on my diet because I can't afford too many calories from carbs. On my diet you will see a protein bar, or eat some greek yoghurt with oatmeal instead. But these are things I love to eat. I did have cheesies on my diet at one time, but now I am trying to find ways to get more protein in my diet, so I took them off. I also took dark chocolate off my diet and replaced it with a bowl of frozen fruit with a couple tablespoons of light cream. I found that I could eat a lot more fruit for the same amount of calories and I don't really like chocolate all that much. It is addictive, but you can also have coffee or a latte with a lot less calories and get the same taste. But that doesn't mean you should follow my diet plan. If you prefer chocolate, keep it on your diet. Good luck and remember, you have to love your diet because your maintenance plan is only a small step away from that.

Practise fasting!

I will admit I haven't yet done a true fast such as fast for 24 hrs. Mine is more like for 5 hours! But that is a big step for me to go without food for 5 hours. I am used to eating every 2-3 hours. It is a habit that I got into following a diet advocated by the fitness industry: eat 6 small meals a day. Have you ever been wilderness camping and been without "real" food for an extended period of time? When you come out of the bush, food tastes SO GOOD! That is what fasting gets you, so hungry that you are hypersensitive to all the tastes and aromas when you finally do sit down to eat. You just have to make sure that you don't overeat after a fast. Fasting just heightens the pleasure of anything you are eating. Even something that you would normally find boring to eat, tastes incredible. One reasons I recommend fasting. You can get more out of your food with out having to rely on the overly sweet or overly fat tastes of food to get the same experience. Just don't try it if you are pregnant or have some other health issues, fasting is only recommended for people who are generally healthy and not pregnant.

The processed food addiction

In the last 5 years I have been gradually cutting processed foods out of my diet. Many processed foods contain a lot of addictive additives. I have noticed over the years that I am loosing my
"taste" for processed foods. In other words I am losing cravings for once loved foods such as cheesies, baked goods, chocolate etc. Now I can't stand milk chocolate where as once I was literally addicted to it. I don't know exactly the mechanisms beyond this change, but I compare it similar to an addiction. For example, giving up smoking is difficult because you are addicted. But once you have been off of cigarettes for awhile, you no longer crave them. In fact if you have one, it sometimes makes you feel nauseous. The odd thing is that I do notice a "pleasure response" when I initially bite into a processed food, but if I keep eating it, my body eventually starts sending signals of rejection to my brain. My experience seems to be aligned with what they say about a lot of processed foods; that they contain the correct sugar, salt, fat ratio to stimulate appetite and activate the pleasure centers in the brain, but for some reason my body seems to recognize that the incoming food is of low quality and soon afterwards rejects it. I have the opposite reaction when eating things such as salads, fruits, and unprocessed meats. Once my appetite is stimulated I want more and more of these things until I am full. Now someone who is addicted to processed foods is going to say they have the opposite experience and once they taste the processed food they want to eat a whole lot of it. This is a personal opinion, but I believe that this response is most likely the body craving more of the food because it is of low quality. For example, if the person starts more unprocessed foods into their diet, then their tastes will shift. Eventually the individual's body will develop more of a taste for unprocessed foods and reject the processed foods. I have cut processed sugar almost completely out of my diet and now I am finding that things with added sugar are almost "too sweet" and I find myself craving more of the natural sugars found in fruits and vegetables. The change is really helping me to maintain my weight.

Mindless eating...breaking the habit.

Most of us do this, and one thing I have learned is that it is a bad habit that needs to be broken. I remember when I was a child, we used to eat in front of the TV. I believe that this is where the whole "mindless" eating habit begins. Whenever we sit down to eat a meal, we should be "fully present" with the experience of eating. Take small bites and savour every aroma, taste and texture associated with your meal. If you don't do this, you will quickly inhale a meal without even realizing you have eaten. Regardless of whether you are on a six meal a day or a three meal a day plan, you have to recognize that you will be doing a lot of eating during your lifetime. If you want to maintain a good weight, you have to recognize the fact that you will be eating several times a week. (3 x 7 = 21 times!). You will sit down 21 times with a meal every week if you are on a 3 meal a day plan. If you really struggle with giving up mindless eating such as eating in front of the TV, computer screen, on the phone, or distracted by conversations with others, then try this strategy: Keep a food journal where you describe what the experience of eating is like with each of your meals. When you make a meal, describe what it is and what the experience of eating it is like. Sounds crazy, but eventually you will train yourself to become "fully present" with every meal you eat.
The next step to breaking the habit of mindless eating, is the habit I have where I eat a lot of "free snacks" during the day. I am on a diet, but yet I have eaten several chips, crackers, nuts, etc. throughout the day which have no calories! This is a serious issue for me because I live in a house with another adult who is a compulsive junk food eater. It is like an ex-alcoholic living in a house with a fully stocked liquor cabinet. How difficult would that be! One strategy I used to use to combat my "free snack" habit was to buy "healthy" forms of the various junk food items in our house. Ie. Dark chocolate, baked cheesies and baked chips. And then I would just allow myself to have a bowl of these items instead of a mindless handful once in awhile throughout the day. But right now I have decided to remove these types of items from my menu temporarily to allow for foods with a higher protein content. However in doing so, I am back to the mindless eating habit of acquiring "free snacks." In a future blog I will attempt to tackle this second element to mindless eating, as I have not yet figured out how to do this successfully.

But I hate going to the gym!

So do I. When I went to the gym it was usually boring for me. Not social and I really didn't like working out by myself. Now I only go about 3x a week. And it is mostly just to use the pool and to do some strength training, but most of the time I work out at home. Most of my exercise is doing things that I like to do. For example, skiing, biking outdoors and running outdoors. Plus I also took up skating. If you are not an exerciser, then I recommend walking outdoors. Find a nice place to go for a walk, or even if you can't find a nice place, walk to a store and back and when you get there, buy yourself a small treat. As long as your treat fits into your diet. One of my favourite treats is a small latte. Has about 120cals in it, and it is worth a walk to go and get it! This mock "forging for food" strategy is something our ancestors would have done, and the reason they were not fat. Make sure the walk is long enough that it burns more calories than the treat itself. Unless it fits on your diet anyways. Exercise in my opinion should always be enjoyable, never stressful. It should also be something that you enjoy doing.