Keep up Healthy Habits During the Holidays, Ep #005
In this episode, we are going to talk about surviving the holidays and how to keep your health on track while going through the season. I’ll walk you through a few steps that you can take to prepare and get through this time of year without derailing your progress. We are also going to talk about some of the holiday challenges that my patients bring to me and what to do about those.
Before we get started, I just want to say, I recognize not everyone celebrates holidays at the same time of year. Not everyone celebrates Christmas. That is what my family celebrates and that is what a lot of my patients celebrate so that is some of what we're gonna be talking about today. You may also come across this at a different time of year so you might save it and go back to it around Thanksgiving, or you might hang in and go for the ride because I think you are gonna learn a lot in this episode that you can use for lots of circumstances in your life.
Points of interest...
Why are the holidays so hard? [1:54]
Setting goals for the season [4:43]
Planning to have fun [7:17]
Staying active [13:09]
What to do about food pushers? [15:03]
What if there is nothing from your meal plan at the event? [18:30]
What to do with food gifts and leftovers? [22:20]
What to do with today’s information? [28:20]
Setting goals and sticking with your plan
Don’t set yourself up for failure and frustration. Setting goals is important for anything in life, but even more so around your health but you want to set a realistic goal for this time of year. If you have been maintaining your weight all year, your goal might be to continue maintaining it. If you have been losing a lot of weight or making a lot of changes to your health, this may be a time of year when you focus more on maintaining that number as opposed to expecting yourself to lose more weight.
Make the decision to stick with your current plan as much as possible. Whatever you have been doing so far, I want you to try to keep doing that for the whole season. If you're on medication make sure to stay on it and take it consistently. If you're on a current exercise plan where you have a schedule, try to stick to that as much as possible. Make it sort of a non-negotiable in your schedule. If you have a specific nutrition plan that is working for you, try to stick to that as closely as possible most of the time.
Homework: What to do with what you’ve learned?
In the episode, we went through the steps of setting a realistic goal, sticking with your plan as much as possible, planning for fun, and going out of your way to stay active this time of year. Now let’s do a few things that will help you stay on track.
First, write down what would make you proud come January 1st. You don’t have to have a numbered goal, maybe it’s just maintaining or staying active. What would you be proud of yourself for sticking to over the holiday season? Next, write down the two or three holiday treats you're gonna enjoy in moderation then you can think the rest as not your food! Then you should pick the one or two events where you're going to celebrate. You will pay a little less attention to balance, a little less attention to your food plan, and just enjoy those events. Then you're going to stick to the plan the rest of the week. Lastly, weigh yourself. What I want you to do when you weigh yourself is DO NOT judge the number. It's just a number. It's just your baseline. That way you know where you're starting from and have a way to measure your progress over the season.
Connect With Dr. Francavilla
Subscribe to The Dr. Francavilla Show on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Stitcher