Podcast #21 – The Holiday Diet
Plan ahead for the days you want to eat big or drink. Just like studying for a test you can’t cram the night before, the hay is either in the barn or it isn’t, you can’t make up for lost time.
- Week 1 – Aggressive diet (500 calorie deficit)
- Week 2 – Same deal, and yes, this means you may not crush it at Christmas parties. You get to Drink OR Eat dessert.
- Week 3 – Christmas! Enjoy! 23-25th are days off. You’ve prepared and have some space to work. Back on track the 26th.
- Week 4 – Strict diet until new years eve where you can go big, enjoy parties and do what you’d like. Jan 2, back to normal life of maintenance.
Just like saving for a bigger purchase, take the calories you either don’t eat or work out to gain and “save” them for the holidays.
- Plan ahead, mentally save space each day
- This builds anticipation, which is the most fun part
- Build in reserve so that you can 100% enjoy the actual holidays
Writing things off, like “it’s just the holidays” is a negative and self fulfilling prophecy. If you don’t try, or actively stop doing the things that are moving you in the right direction then you will inevitable fail.
- Slippery slope fallacy is a fallacy.
- Don’t write off personal responsibility to some excuse.
- Doing your best to swim against the stream will put you so much farther ahead of where you would have if you have just gone with the easy choice. Even if you don’t move further up, you definitively won’t move back.
Learn how to say NO. You don’t have to drink at every party. You don’t have to eat dessert. You don’t have to try everything at the buffet. You don’t have to take the cookies home with you.
- Example at the party about drinking.
- Avoid pressure from group think, ultimately people that are “bothered” by your decisions are too self interested to really care. And people that care about you won’t pressure you.
- Understand the pressures ahead of time and make your decision BEFORE you get to it.
Enjoy the HOLIDAY. But remember that the holiday is 1-2 days over the span of a month. Maximize the experience by creating anticipation and enjoying things around the event like family, decorating, and time off from work. If you decide to take Thanksgiving-New Years off from your eating, exercise, and self discipline, don’t be surprised that it’s hard to “get back on the wagon”
- Cheat meals and off days need to be distinctly different from normal days
- 1-5 days off, no matter how “bad” you ate or drank, do not have a huge effect in the grand scheme. 45 consecutive days of “average” will sink you with slow and subtle efficiency.
- Start your “new year’s resolutions” TODAY and you’ll have a much easier time actually doing it this year.
