Eating Your Weight Thru the Holidays

I've added a Twitter feed to my blog and if you've noticed that, then you know that I'm baking holiday cookies this week, and Barry has an office party at our house this Friday. It just cannot be complete without making a lot of sweets and a lot of carbs!

So how do I handle all this?

1. I have an emergency plan if I lose control. Call this your back up plan.

• Stop at 3 (3 cookies, 3 candied things) if I do get into the goodies.
• Call a friend or check online with a support group who can give you encouragement to drink some water instead and wait 15 minutes to see if you can control the craving.
• Leave the house; take a walk or a drive. A walk is good because it also increases your metabolism. Be gone for at least 15 minutes. If you go on a drive, drink water and go where there is no food - the gym or the library or a walk in a park/woods. (Avoid the mall, Target, Wal-mart and any other store that has any food in or around it - the smells won't help you even if you think you could kill two birds with one stone by getting some errands done.)

2. Increase your exercising during the week by 5-15 minutes a day...for the week, this will give you 30-45 minutes more for the week.

• If you're short on time, take the 5 minutes to run up and down the stairs somewhere or dance like crazy in the kitchen when a great song comes on (they're only about 3 minutes - I did 3 different songs during the big bake-a-thon).

3. Its winter, so double-duty: Increase your water - add 2-3 cups a day.

• Another cup when you wake up, one while you dance or run the stairs (when you finish) and another before you go to bed, or wherever you can find the time to suck another one down.
• This will help you feel fuller when you do eat, and helps hydrate your skin during these drier months, too.

4. Make extra portions for yourself of things you can have on your program and reward yourself by having more of those and limiting your other indulgences.

• I like veal sauteed with mushrooms and asparagus and maybe crab meat (veal oscar). I use chicken breasts usually for this, and parmesan and egg for the "breading" and maybe italian seasoning.
• Leftovers can go into an omelet for breakfast the next day and it's really a snap to whip up a one-person hollandaise sauce.

• If you haven't tried this, you owe it to yourself. A good whisk and the
  microwave - watch the "pot" - does the trick and if not, throw it into the
  blender to eliminate any lumpy mistakes.

• The blender then goes into the
  dishwasher - easy clean-up (yay!).

• Crab and asparagus omelets with
  hollandaise - now there's a real holiday treat!

With these methods for reducing your hunger, keeping your metabolism up, and avoiding the worst cravings as much as you can, you can enjoy the holidays and maintain the weight loss you've already enjoyed, and be ready afterwards to kick it into high gear for the spring bathing season coming up....

All you're doing then (since you've increased your metabolism and your exercise and your water) is stop indulging in carbs and sweets (again). Think you can do that? Sure thing!