Christmas Is A-coming - Make Sure It's Only The Goose That's Getting Fat!

OK, so what's your Christmas / New Year food strategy?

If you haven't planned this out, then you're heading for a fall when you eventually manage to hoist your excessive bulk back on the scales sometime toward the end of January.

Now, there's no excuse, because you already know what happens over the festive season so far as food and drink are concerned. It would be downright dishonest to pretend otherwise, and to later complain that you'd somehow been taken by surprise, when the scales crack apart beneath you.

So this is what you have to do....

Devise a simple schedule of where you're going to be that's a festive event and will present you with food and drink choices over and above the quotidian.

Then write in against each of these events precisely what - and how much, because portion control is vital here - you will allow yourself to ingest, taking account of the parameters determined by your individual diet.

For instance, as a low-carber, I shall be having turkey with sprouts (which I love anyway) cauliflower and braised celery, but eschewing the carrots, and making do with just one roast potato (when I could easily eat the lot). I'll not be allowing that to happen any more and my meal will be a good, healthy and hearty plateful nonetheless, which I shall relish it. I'll not be drinking, but that's because I don't. I can't remember seeing too much low-carb booze about, mind.

Now, having determined what the festive bit is going to be, you've then just got to give thought to the rest of the day and decide how you need to adjust your usual routine, and what you can sensibly allow yourself for your other meals. You need to think about this in order to avoid destroying your diet and undoing the good work you've put in up to now.

Write the eating plan down, and don't allow yourself to be deflected.

You know you're worth it - even at Christmas. Let everybody else outstrip you in the trencherman stakes this year. It's OK, you'll be able to relax things and cut yourself some slack in twelve months time, because you'll be at your target weight, you'll have come to understand and accept the importance of portion control, and you'll have learned precisely how to redress the little weight variations that will inevitably creep in, particularly at times like this.

So, you put on five or six pounds over the holidays? Then you go abstemious for a couple of weeks and take it off again, because you know how to.

Putting on five or six pounds does not mean that the rule book's been torn up so you can just pile it all on again! It means you apply the sensible disciplines of abstention before you revert to the everyday disciplines of maintenance.

All you have to do is be conscious of your actions, and accept that you are entirely accountable for them.

I know it's simple and obvious but it's effective. It really works. And I just think it's far better to plan than to unthinkingly fall off the wagon in the way I discussed in the Boot Camp earlier today.

So get out the pad of A4, a couple of pens and a ruler, and your diary, and plan your festive feeding now. It will save you so much self-loathing later, because that's something we really know about, and we ought to know it's a good and, in this case easy, thing to avoid.

Till next time,

Your old pal,

Fred