So You Ate Too Much, Now What?

So You Ate Too Much, Now What?

I grew up in a family that ate way too much—most all the time. We did not push back from the table until our stomachs painfully pushed back against our waistbands. And if the meal happened to be a holiday feast, I’m embarrassed to say that we would just open the top button of our pants and continue to consume. Boy, did I have a major health-hurting habit to unlearn once I entered adulthood!

Most of us find ourselves filling up on way too much food during the holiday season. Traditional dishes and specialty fare tempt us to overeat, and we succumb to the immediate pleasure. Afterward giving into temptation, many will throw in the towel on healthy eating and go whole-hog for the remainder of the holiday season—promising to go on a diet after all the damage has been done.

Today I am offering an alternative response to a “breach in the walls” of your sound food consumption. The best way I have found to avoid a weight-gain train wreck in my own life is to get off the train of overeating at the very next (food) stop. If I, for example, go out to a special breakfast with a friend and find myself splurging on calories, I don’t consider the whole day a wash, and then proceed to overeat at each meal that follows. I stop that ‘runaway train’ in its tracks, right there and then, and return to a cautious calorie intake going forward.

Look at it this way: If you got into a fender bender while driving your car, you wouldn’t then seize on the opportunity to ram your vehicle into every car and building you passed on the way to the body shop, would you? Likewise, when your diet “takes a hit”, don’t continue to add insult to injury. Stop, recalculate, regain control, and enjoy sampling the special foods you are sure to encounter with self-control. This way the holidays will leave you with fond memories, instead of a truckload of guilt and a bunch of pounds that need to be off-loaded!