The 1 trick you must use after a holiday meal to avoid gaining weight this summer
Memorial Day, the unofficial kick-off to summer, is just around the corner! Summer holidays are one of my favorites! BBQing, swimming in the pool, making s’mores, it’s all so much fun! The only downside is that traditional BBQ foods and desserts aren’t a normal part of my healthy eating plans. However, that doesn’t mean I skip out on the celebrations and you don’t have to either! You can lose weight, or avoid gaining weight, while still eating your favorite holiday foods!
I believe in a healthy lifestyle rather than a diet. Part of my lifestyle is enjoying holidays with friends, family and food! Let’s be real, there is always some kind of celebration, holiday or party that comes up, and we don’t want to miss out on those moments just because there’s food or alcohol involved.
I have lots of great strategies on how to plan before a holiday meal to make sure you don’t overdo it, but today I want to talk to you about how to get back on track after a holiday meal. I’ve found that getting back on track is one of the biggest struggles mamas face when they’re creating a healthy lifestyle.
How a holiday meal turns into a weight gain spiral
First, I want to talk to you about how or why a holiday meal gets you so off track. Ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, one meal or even one day of eating outside of your normal habits shouldn’t cause long-term weight gain. That being said, I talk to many women who gain weight after a holiday because they fall into bad eating habits before, during and after a celebratory meal.
Most of the time, we go into a holiday with one of two attitudes; we either say, “I can’t have that dessert, burger, whatever” or “I’m just going to eat whatever I want today.” Both of these attitudes get us into trouble. The first leaves us feeling restricted which ultimately leads to binging. The second, takes away our food accountability and we overeat without realizing it!
If we have these attitudes before a holiday, we tend to start thinking about how we could also give in to eating whatever we want the day or two before a holiday. This is especially true if we’re traveling or hosting a lot of people. It makes things “easier” to just grab fast food on the way out of town or order pizza for everyone so we don’t have to cook.
Then the holiday comes, we overeat because who can pass up a fresh cheeseburger hot off the grill, an ice-cold beer, and a hot brownie with ice cream for dessert?
After we've overeaten for a day or two, we start to feel bad about ourselves and what we’ve done. We tell ourselves that we’ve ruined all of our progress and that we can’t even stick to a diet because we have no self-control. This kind of negative self-talk leads us to give up completely.
All of a sudden, that one BBQ or holiday meal of “off eating” has become a whole week, a month, three months of bad eating and we’re completely lost.
Like I said, one meal or one day of off eating isn’t going to mess up your weight loss progress. However, when those choices start to snowball, they absolutely affect our health and weight loss.
Avoid the spiral with the Never 2 trick
You might remember that when we started, I said I still enjoy holiday meals and BBQs. However, the picture I just painted makes it sound like we should avoid holiday eating altogether because it leads us down a dark path. The truth is, that overeating and completely restricting aren’t your only two options!
The third option is to allow yourself to enjoy a holiday without restrictions, and then to get right back on track with your normal eating habits. I call this the “Never 2” trick.
Before you go into a holiday meal, you should stick to your normal eating patterns. Don’t give yourself excuses as to why you “deserve” to eat outside of your boundaries before the holiday meal. We talked all about “cheat days” last week on my blog and why we shouldn’t use that mindset. But what you really need to remember is that you deserve to be healthy and happy, more than you deserve to be unhealthy and unhappy.
On the day of the holiday, you should try to think ahead and decide what you want to eat. Are you going to go crazy with carbs? Are you going to savor a fat-heavy dessert? If you know you’re going to go over on one macronutrient, then try to balance that out by going low-carb or lower-fat on your other meals for the day.
Then, when you go to your holiday party, enjoy yourself! Have so much fun! Eat the burger. Drink the beer. Have some dessert. Don’t beat yourself up about the choices you made. Just own up to them.
Now, here’s where you can make or break this trick. At the next meal, you should get right back on track with your normal eating habits! If your next meal is breakfast the following day, then eat your normal breakfast. Don’t extend the holiday by having a donut. Eat a hearty breakfast that will set you up for success!
The trick comes in learning how to get right back on track without feeling guilt or shame. Guilt and shame are what prevent us from doing the right thing! If we don’t allow ourselves to feel those emotions, then it’s so much easier to make decisions that the healthiest version of ourselves would make!
A healthy life isn’t actually about the food we eat. It’s about the feelings and emotions we attach to the food we eat. You don’t need to comfort yourself with food if you don’t feel bad about your decisions! When you accept yourself, the food you choose to eat, and don’t make those decisions to dictate your worth, then you’ll be able to enjoy holidays without spiraling. In fact, you’ll be able to enjoy life without dieting!
Learning to control our emotions related to food sounds simple, but it can get complicated. If you need someone to help you work through those feelings and teach you how to properly nourish your body, then let’s chat! I’d love for you to join my Macros Made Easy Program where we combine macro tracking with mindset work to change how we think, feel and look at our bodies. Schedule a free discovery call to see if it’s the fit you’re looking for in your life!
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