The Eating Season

One of the first nurses I ever worked with told me about the Eating Season.

Spanning from the time you buy your first bag of Halloween Candy until you consume your last nacho during the Super Bowl—this puppy runs 3 full months and includes the daunting period from Thanksgiving to Christmas or Hanukkah.

The last month of the Eating Season provides both a lifeline for the overindulgent and a guilty reminder of the time-tested principle of cause and effect—courtesy of incessant ads for diets.

Is there a different way? Oh yes my friends, there is. And it allows you to fully enjoy goodies of the season without gaining weight.

Sound too good to be true? It is if you’re not willing to do some pretty close self-examination.

Are you up to the challenge?

#5 Eat Your Damn Protein

WLS post-ops, you are SICK of hearing it but if you’re living it, you know it’s vital to success. At every meal, at every snack, seek protein foods and eat them first.

Loop-hole alert: meals should be about 20-30 grams of protein and snacks at least 8 grams.

#4 No Rules or Restrictions

Following strict diet rules during the holidays actually makes perfect sense. It makes shopping easier, meal planning a breeze and decision making is a piece of cake? You’ve got enough to worry about; this is no time to be worrying about what to eat.

Problem is, it’s a short-term strategy. Rules work when you use them but they’re not sustainable long-term. That means a period of rule-following always leads to overeating.

Don’t do it.

Decide what you want to eat and after your protein, enjoy it--fully. Eat it slowly and with full attention. Stop when you’ve had enough and you’re not overfull. You’ve got limited room, so fill it with great discrimination.

Avoid the stale store-bought cookies, the picked-over cake in the breakroom and savor mom’s monkey bread with bliss.

#3 Honor Your Hunger

Don’t be skipping any meals to save calories or because you’re ‘too busy’ to eat.

You’ve got to eat something every four hours to keep your metabolism in fighting shape and your blood sugar level.

Caveman hunger does not serve you well. Your body, brain and bloodstream are all conspiring to get you to eat because it perceives a threat to your survival. Seriously! Don’t let this physiological mechanism take over. Take charge with self-care and regular eating.

#2 Speaking of Self-care

It’s impossibly busy this time of year but you’ll be one hot mess if you don’t sleep 7 plus hours a night, exercise your heart 15 minutes per day and take your vitamins.

You compromise your weight when you skip any of these vital self-care essentials.

#1 Believe Something is Different

Research exploring the thought patterns of women with obesity revealed a consistent lack of confidence in their weight maintenance skills/capacity.

You’ve seen the platitudes: ‘If you think you can or if you think you can’t, you’re right.’

Buddha knew it, positive psychology researchers know it but… you doubt it?

Grab a Dr. Wayne Dyer book or Google byronkatie.com and begin to notice what you’re telling yourself and what you believe about yourself and your weight.

Once you uncover some of those self-limiting beliefs, you might find fighting off the desire to have a piece of cheesecake has more to do with avoiding Cousin Charlie than your ‘weakness’ for sweets.