Avoiding Holiday Weight Gain

I was pleased to be a part of a Twitter party on the website Mompreneurs Online. The party was all about the holidays — shopping, crafts, even make-up tips from Avon.  I was there to provide advice about  making it through the holidays without gaining a lot of weight.  A topic that’s on the minds of too many of us.

For the uninitiated, a Twitter party is when like-minded folks spend time in a formal chat of sorts, tweeting about the subject they are like-minded about.  The organizers sent questions ahead of time so I could be prepared with some useful tips, instead of just ad-libbing my way through half an hour of random questions.

Here is my response to Avoiding Holiday Weight Gain (my Twitter responses were abbreviated and used in multiple tweets for 140 character limits, but we’ve expended them here):

How can I navigate the holidays without piling on extra pounds?

• First thing is to not worry about it.  If we’re emotional eaters, anxiety can cause us to eat even more than we normally would.   One way to help stop worrying about it is to stop weighing ourselves.
• Focus on how you feel instead; do what need to do to make your  feel good.
• Give yourself permission to eat what you want. Feeling like we can’t have what we want can also cause us to eat more than we really want.
• Eat intuitively. Let your body guide you in what you really want to eat and how much. Don’t put external limits on eating.
• External limits tell us what we should do.  When we do what we want, we have a much easier time doing it.  Understatement  :-)
• The trick is realizing what we really want.  It helps to feed ourselves well – don’t skip meals, eat balanced meals.
• Also stay physically active.  It helps our bodies function like they are supposed to.  And it puts us in touch with our bodies.
• Manage stress, too.  During holidays, that often comes from trying to do too much.  Be selective in what you commit to doing.
• Remember to enjoy the holidays.  That’s the point of them.

How are you doing with staying on point during this holiday?

Marsha Hudnall
President & Co-Owner, Green Mountain at Fox Run, Vermont (now closed)
MS, Health Communications, Boston University
BS, Nutrition & Dietetics, Stephen F. Austin University, TX
Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Certified Dietitian, State of Vermont Board of Registration
Executive Board Member, Binge Eating Disorder Association
Executive Board Member, The Center for Mindful Eating