Just because it’s a holiday doesn’t mean you can have carte-blanc and forget all the healthy eating habits you’ve worked hard to acquire. If you can take your healthy lifestyle off so easily and quickly, it probably isn’t a lifestyle. However, it also doesn’t mean you have to be a stick-in-the-mud and not enjoy yourself. Learn 4 tips to help you navigate any holiday situation.
Years ago, I went to a family get-together to make gingerbread houses. This wasn’t the simple, take-it-out-of-the-box-and-put-some-frosting-on-it ordeal. Graham crackers, homemade frosting/mortar. The whole 9 yards. My in-laws are pretty creative folks. Everyone just started plowing away at their eventual masterpieces. I didn’t want to be left behind so I too jumped into the frosting fray. Let me say that I am not artistically gifted or even inclined. During the unveiling of everyone’s amazing creations, all I had to show for my hour-plus was what I called, “Hurricane Katrina Aftermath”. In retrospect, I probably should’ve had a plan as to what I was going to make before I started making it.
Having a game plan makes all the difference. If you have to give a big sales presentation, you most likely wouldn’t just go up and wing it without doing some amount of preparation beforehand. Likewise, you need a holiday situation game plan and take a little bit of time preparing before the event. Here are the 4 steps to creating such a plan-we call the “Holiday Healthy Eating Habits”.
Holiday Healthy Eating Habits
1. Identify the Situation and Obstacles
When and where do you have the biggest challenge to stay resolute to yourself? By identifying the specific situations you can better formulate a plan. Try to be specific rather than just choosing the situation of ‘holiday parties’. Dig deeper. Maybe it’s talking to friends right next to the food. The next part is vital. It’s one thing to set a goal or identify the situation. But you must realize that there will ALWAYS be something that will hamper your resolve or initial game plan. Identifying these potential obstacles before they present themselves will be like having a bulletproof vest.
“Know thy enemy.” –Sun Tzu
2. Formulate a Strategy
Now that you know when and where your willpower is the weakest, the next step is to create a plan of action when faced with this situation. When ‘x’ happens, I will react with ‘y’. It’s helpful to have at least 2 plans (Plan A and Plan B) that way you’ve got a backup in case things don’t go according to plan—which is inevitable and will happen. Remember you’re planning what to do in the situation AND all the potential obstacles in that situation that can cause you to “fall off the fitness wagon”.
3. Rehearse/Visualize
I don’t know one single top performer in any field (speaker, athlete, or salesperson) who doesn’t practice what they will say or do before the performance time. You don’t have to rehearse with a friend (although that will definitely help), but you do need to go through the situation. I am a huge fan of visualization. It’s a less intimidating way of rehearsing and is VERY effective. You paint a mental picture of your situation and let it play out like a movie with the script you’ve created for your success. The more senses you can bring to your visualization the more powerful it will be. What does it smell like? Who is there? What is the lighting like? What’s the temperature? What does it smell like? You get the picture. Run through this activity as many times as you need to feel comfortable that you can do it.
4. Follow the Plan-Keep Your Guard Up
I can’t tell you how many times I see someone come up with a plan and they visualize and practice what they are going to do to preserve their healthy habits, and at the first provocation-they cave. When I ask them what happened, they reply, “I forgot”. This may sound silly, but you’ve got to follow through with your game plan. It’s an amazing feeling to go through this process from start to finish and then when you live it and it plays out how you’ve visualized it happening, it will be the most euphoric déjà vu you’ll ever experience. Just remember, “Pain of discipline, or pain of regret”.