Monday, December 26, 2011

Buckling Down

It has often seemed silly to me to wait for New Year's Day to start a new diet.  For me, the main event is Christmas. Sometimes we're travelling and don't get home right after Christmas, and usually the parties and social whirl continues through to New Year's, so Boxing Day isn't necessarily the best kick off time for a new diet. But for me, usually this week "in-between" is a good week to start the planning and even the new habits. Things are slower at home and at work. There are still parties to give and go to, but these parties will have consequences and so need to be tracked and planned into overall strategies. There is time to reflect and to plan.

I did pretty well (so far) at holding the line this holiday season.  I tracked. I'm using my new treadmill. I'm keeping up my personal training. I declared Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to be calorie-free days for me.  Interestingly, that really translates into deciding that while only two days of free eating have no long-term consequences to worry about so I just wouldn't think about it, my body still feels and reacts to the short term consequences.  I can't eat too much sugar without feeling bad.  The wine with dinner is great, but two glasses is almost too much for my head. So I ate and drank what I wanted, but what I wanted wasn't as bad as it could be, even though to the outside observer it looked like enough to feed a village for a week.

Monday starts my weight watcher's week, so I'm going to start out tracking today.  I'm going to plan to make sure there are healthy choices around, as I clean up and get ready for the next party.  My oldest boy is around for a month (hooray!) and he is choosing to eat very vegetable-and-meat centric (he calls it "paleo") just like me, so it will be somewhat more rewarding to share the menu planning for a while.

The sun is shining,  it's unseasonably warm, I've got things to do but plenty of time to do them.  Merry Christmas every one!

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