It’s normal to want to indulge over Christmas, but the number of people joining diet clubs and gyms in January speaks volumes about how many regret their festive binges.
I wonder whether that’s a well-trodden path for you? Maybe you’ve grown up associating food with pleasure and fun, so subconsciously you fear that if you don’t eat tonnes, you won’t have a ‘happy Christmas’. It’s easy to slip into a ‘one more won’t hurt’ mind-set – just one of the many reasons you might have piled on the pounds during the festive period in the past.
When working with clients on weight loss programmes, I always like to get clear on what has held them back in the past. These are a few of the things that often come up:
Portion control – have you ever felt you’ve waited all year for Christmas, so you’re not about the hold back? The extra roasties or chocolates don’t seem to matter.
Social life – family commitments, work lunches and endless parties mean that you are literally overloaded with temptation, sometimes on a daily basis. And hangovers add to the urge to eat junk food and veg out on the sofa.
Sedentary lifestyle – a busy social life means exercise routines get put on the back burner as we swap dumbbells for the remote control. The average family spends 3.5 hours watching TV on Christmas Day. Swap that for some gym time and you’ll have done the hard work of actually making a start come the New Year!
Mental ‘hall pass’ – willpower goes out the window at this time of year. It’s almost as if you tell yourself that it’s fine to binge on everything in sight as you’ll lose it all when you go on a January diet / detox.