Christmas: how to stay slim and trip

Christmas is the time of year when you’re ‘allowed’ to indulge in calorific foods, yet you’re also expected to look great in slinky outfits. So how do you manage it? Follow these five steps to avoid weight gain during the festive period.

1. Decide now to be more careful about what you eat this Christmas, but still enjoy yourself! You don’t have to eat mince pies to have a good time! Enjoy the company of friends and family you don’t see that often, dance at the work party and play games with the children.

2. Be prepared. It is essential that you are mentally and physically ready. To get yourself mentally prepared, ask yourself these questions:

Do I seriously want to eat healthily and feel good at Christmas?
Am I resigned to the fact that I will gain weight over the Christmas period?
Do I want to face the task of losing the same weight a second time around?

If after serious consideration your answers are ‘yes, I am serious; no, I am not going to gain weight and no, I don’t want to lose weight a second time’, then we’re in business! Your attitude is the most important factor towards staying healthy and staying slim over Christmas. Don’t underestimate the power of the mind.

Thoughts like ‘Oh, I am sure to gain weight at this time of the year, I always have’, or ‘I’ll get seriously down to losing weight again after Christmas’ are negative. Ensure that your thoughts are positive. Replace, ‘This year I want to stay slim during Christmas’, with ‘This year I will stay slim during Christmas’.

Develop this positive attitude and use the power of imagination to assume greater control over what you eat this Christmas. Then you can easily survive the temptations that will present themselves to you.

3. Know what your ‘Christmas weight maintenance’ goal is. It’s the holiday season, you’ll be eating out more and eating more rich foods, so your goal over the next few weeks can be simply maintaining your weight. That way, you won’t be disappointed if you don’t lose weight, while any loss will be a bonus!

But also remember that a healthy eating plan will give you a better chance of losing weight. Know what you are aiming for and be very positive about how determined you are to keep weight off between now and Christmas. Then, go for it!

4. Really want it! This is a weight maintenance goal for you, not for your partner, your family or anyone else. You really want to stay slim now that you’ve started taking care of your body and your health. Be selfish about it; this is your goal and the rewards and the benefits are also yours.

5. Believe that you can do it. It is certainly possible to keep the weight off leading up to Christmas. The only thing that might prevent you from doing it is yourself.

Believe it and you will do it!