Every Day is a Holiday

If you look at the calendar for the next 3-5 months you will find, in addition to the traditional holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah and New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day – the following lesser known holiday’s: National Boss Day, United Nations Day, Mother-in-Law Day (really?), Wright Brother’s Day and Belly Laugh Day! Now you may be reading this and asking yourself, where is she going with this? I only really struggle with eating choices on major holidays! But, the truth of the matter is that any day of the year can be a challenging one, an overeating one, a “throw in the towel” one. We give a lot of time and attention to the main Fall/Winter holidays because yes of course, there is Aunt Edna’s famous pecan pie to contend with and besides who the heck has heard of a specialty dessert for United Nation’s Day (although I could probably come up with a few if I tried hard enough!).

But my point is this: people don’t need to have a good reason to have a hard time of it out there in The Gap (the culture that simply doesn’t support the healthy lifestyles that we all try practice here at HMR). When I run orientations for people thinking about joining the program, and I am describing why More is Better is such an important aspect of this program, I often ask people why they eat. Of course, the logical answer is that people eat because they are hungry. But the responses I also get when I ask this question are: I eat when I’m bored, I eat when I’m tired, when I’m stressed, when I’m happy, when the ball game is on, when I’m on vacation, when I’m with people, when I’m alone….get it? By the same reasoning, people who use More is Better when they are hungry and feeling deprived, should also employ that same technique when they are feeling anything else I just described above.

Now, I’m not claiming that the holidays are easy for managing your weight – they’re CLEARLY not. I mean, they don’t call it the “National Eating Season” for nothing. I’m merely expressing that we should treat each day, every day – in terms of planning and decision-making and setting goals on all 3 areas of the Triple Imperative (MR/VF/PA) – as if it’s always Christmas and you’re on your way to your 50th holiday party of the season. That’s how urgent it is, that’s how important it is. One’s health and weight are at stake each and every day, not JUST on special occasions.

So, I say to you tonight on the eve of the very special holiday of Leif Erikson day – Let’s eat! Who’s making the double smoothie?

 

by jennyb on 12/10/2012 | Share Story With a Friend

tags: Weight-Loss, HMR, motivation, in the box, holidays