We are in full swing of the Holiday season with all of the festive social gatherings, travels and celebrations. For many, this is a time where the 'diet' is thrown out the door, and why not the 'swimsuit' season is over for most of the country. Sadly with this philosophy of 'festive' living lasts with us long after the Holidays. This is not only with the multiple holidays centered on food and drink seeming to get bigger and excessive (no pun intended) but we as a society are incorporating these ways of living in our everyday life and at the same time becoming less and less physically active. I am not suggesting that everyone does not enjoy themselves during what should be a joyous and festive time, no, I am stating that we merely maintain an awareness of what one aims to succeed during this time of the year and throughout the remainder of the year.
There is hope in maintaining a healthy lifestyle in addition to celebrating with everyone. Even better, it doesn’t have to require a great deal of effort on one’s part! As we continue through the season, it is important to think about the wonderful healthy self- achievements one has made throughout the year (ie possibly reducing medication dosages, the weight-loss, being able to run, or even being able to bend over to tie one’s shoes). All of these accomplishments have required effort and habit building for you to reach this goal, why let one part of the year be the time old habits are allowed to reign free.
* Set a desired self goal to achieve over this Holiday season and practice it daily!
By setting this self-goal and consistently practicing ways of achieving it through either:
* Maintaining one’s physical activity
* Always getting in five full cups of fruits and or vegetables a day
* Using healthy meal replacements as a means to counter balance the times you are out
not only assists in continuing building the healthy long-term behaviors, you are also helping yourself in reducing the temptations of old habits. Such self-goals could consist of either maintaining one’s current weight or even still continuing on the path of weight-loss. Whatever the self-goal is, make sure it is a realistic and achievable goal.
What this goal setting does for someone is enables he/or she to continue building the positive can do behaviors. Sure there is nothing that says there won’t be some of the old behaviors that may be re-introduced back throughout the season, but what is different this time around is one is mindful of the choices being made. Simply put, the question one should always ask one’s self is, ‘and then what?’ By asking this question helps in determining if the instant gratification out-lasts the long-term gratification and or prohibits you from successfully achieving your set self-goal. Perhaps that one instance is not the culprit, but perhaps it is the door that it helps re-open afterwards that is the challenge, that is what ‘and then what’ helps make aware.
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