What do you want for Christmas? Do you want to be a real Christmas cracker in your favourite little black dress? Do you want to feel and look your absolute best?
"Christmas comes but once a year…and when it does it brings good cheer".
It certainly does, but as many of us know, the Christmas season can also bring a lot to our waistline.
Perhaps in the past, you’ve thought of Christmas as an excuse to eat every chocolate and mince pie on offer. After all, Christmas comes but once a year. When you see the weight gain afterwards, it’s a good job it doesn’t come more often.
Christmas is that time of the year when looking our best is important to us all... we want to feel confident when we walk in to that dinner or party.
This is why many people decide to lose weight in preparation for Christmas and if you have lost weight, you certainly won’t want to gain it back again in just a couple of weeks.
After a season of Christmas cheer, many of us are horrified to realise that our clothes are suddenly more “snug” than comfortable. But this year, give yourself a Christmas present. Promise yourself that you will do your best to avoid the weight gain, the guilt and the hard work in January. You can have a wonderful Christmas without it resulting in extra pounds. Yes, it is possible.
So how do you manage it? Follow these 5 steps forward to avoid that weight gain over Christmas:
1. Decide now to be more careful about what you eat this Christmas time - but still enjoy yourself. You don’t have to eat mince pies to have a good time. Enjoy the company of friends and family you don’t see often enough, dance at the work ’do’, play games with the children...
2. Start by being prepared. It is essential that you are both mentally and physically prepared. To get yourself mentally prepared, ask yourself these questions:
- Do I seriously want to eat healthily and feel healthy over the Christmas season?
- Am I resigned to the fact that I will gain weight over Christmas?
- Do I want to face the task of losing the same weight a second time around?
If after serious consideration your answers are “YES, I am serious; NO, I am not going to gain weight and NO, I don’t want to lose weight a second time”, then we ’re in business. Your attitude is the most important factor towards staying healthy and staying slim over Christmas. Don’t underestimate the power of the mind.
Thoughts like “Oh, I am sure to gain weight at this time of the year, I always have”, or “I’ll get seriously down to losing weight again after Christmas” are all negative input. Ensure that your thoughts are positive. Replace, “This year I want to stay slim during Christmas”, with “This year I will stay slim during Christmas”.
Develop this positive attitude, and use the power of imagination to see yourself in more control over what you eat this Christmas season. Then you can easily survive the temptations that will present themselves to you.
3. Know what your Christmas weight maintenance goal is. It’s the holiday season, you’ll be eating out more and eating more rich foods. So set your goals over the next few weeks as maintaining your weight. That way, you won’t be disappointed if you don’t lose - and any loss is a boost. But know that you want to stick to a healthy eating plan and you will have a better chance of doing it. Like the words of the old song, “If you don’t have a dream, how you going to make a dream come true” Know what you are aiming for. Decide now and be very positive about how determined you are to keep weight off between now and Christmas and then go for it.
4. Really want it This is a weight maintenance goal for you. Not for your partner, your family or anyone else. You really want to stay slim now that you’ve started taking care of your body and your health. Be selfish about it. This is your goal and the rewards and the benefits are also yours.
5. Believe that you can do it. It is certainly possible to keep the weight off leading up to Christmas. The only thing that might prevent you from doing it is yourself.
Believe it and you will do it.