Diet Damage Control: Stop the Christmas Blowout

December 20, 2022

With Christmas around the corner, we are entering a period of overwhelming enjoyment; and a period of diet damage control.

Days off work, weekends that are filled with staff shows and family functions, and of course lunches and dinners with friends.

How good is it?

But, as always, there is a small negative associated.

Namely the fact that we have a tendency to go absolutely crazy across the entire Christmas period, throwing caution to the wind, and eating our weight in goodies.

Now don’t get me wrong – I am a firm believer that a bad meal isn’t going to derail your progress.

A single piece of fruit isn’t going to make you skinny, and a single donut isn’t going to make you fat. As we all know, it is the accumulation of good habits that keeps us healthy, while alternatively, its the accumulation of not so good habits that makes us unhealthy.

However, despite knowing this full well, we as humans seem to love a good blowout.

I’ll use myself as an example.

The Cadbury Effect

I am a sucker for chocolate.

I have a ridiculous sweet tooth, and to be completely honest, chocolate is my proverbial kryptonite.

Interestingly, my wife and I could have an unopened block of chocolate in the fridge for the better part of a year, and I wont touch the thing. However, if we were to open it, I can guarantee that it will be gone within the hour.

Now, I realize that this doesn’t really make sense, but the reason I do this is to get rid of it.

Somewhere in the depth of my subconscious, I think to myself: ‘stuff it, I’ve already blown it, I might as well eat the whole thing‘.

Clever?

Nope.

Logical?

Still nope.

Common?

Unfortunately, yes.

We know it doesn’t make sense, but we still do it every damn time.

Not just for chocolate either (which is still not great) – we as humans have a tendency to do it for absolutely everything.

Even things that last for days or weeks at a time…

The Christmas Blowout

When it comes to Christmas, things can go downhill pretty fast.

A bad afternoon can easily turn into a very bad weekend. And that weekend can very easily roll into an extremely bad week.

All of which comes down to that same mindset.

“Welp, Ive blown it – ill get back on track after new years…”

Extremely common, and extremely stupid.

All in all I completely understand where we are coming from, but that doesn’t make this mindset any less flawed.

We know that one single afternoon of eating and drinking isn’t going to derail a years worth of progress.

Hell, outside of a little bit of bloating and a potential stomach ache, the likelihood of this single night doing any lasting damage is pretty slim.

But two weeks of eating, drinking, and being merry?

That’s when the damage starts to accumulate.

Diet Damage Control

So in my mind, diet damage control over Christmas comes down to mindset.

Take a step back and realize that a single meal isn’t going to derail all of your hard work and progress.

Enjoy that meal as much as humanly possible. Be social, drink, and be happy.

But don’t let it become a two week binge.

Keep physically active (as normal) over the Christmas period.

Eat as you normally would outside of those key social situations.

And enjoy the time off!

Would you like to re-assess your health behaviours and identify what you need to work toward over the coming year?

Our scorecard is a quick and simple questionnaire to help you do this.

Take The Scorecard Here

 It’s free and only takes 7 minutes

Photo by Nicole Michalou from Pexels

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