Holiday time is here and with it come a whole host of potential problems – office goodies, vacations, celebratory meals, festive atmosphere, etc. As we’ve mentioned before, research shows that successful maintainers eat consistently day to day, regardless of the circumstances. It’s important to keep in mind this holiday season that your body doesn’t know it’s holiday time! To your body, a calorie is a calorie, whether it’s you consume it on Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, or any random Tuesday.
A strategy that helps dieters at this time of year is establishing rules for themselves, such as “I will never eat any goodies that people bring into my office.” Having a rule like this makes avoiding unplanned food so much easier and less painful because, when confronted with such food, dieters never have to go through the struggle that makes dieti
ng so difficult (“Should I eat this…I know I shouldn’t… But it looks really good… But it’s not on my plan…. But it’s so hard to resist…”). When dieters automatically say to themselves, “I’m definitely not going to have any. No Choice” they eliminate the struggle and can move on. (Day 19 of the Beck Diet Solution Weight Loss Workbook)