Ate Too Much?
I grew up in a family that overate most of the time. We didn’t push back from the table until our stomachs painfully pushed back against our waistbands. Even then, I’m embarrassed to say, we would simply ease our suffering by opening the top button of our pants and continue to consume some more. Boy, did I have a major health-hurting habit to unlearn when I entered adulthood!
Some of you may be prone to fill yourself with food to near-maximum capacity during today’s Fourth of July celebration. Tasty barbecue and yummy side dishes can strongly tempt you to succumb to the immediate pleasure of it all. Having overeaten, many of you will throw in the towel altogether and continue eating all those tasty leftovers for days to come—promising to go on a diet after all the damage has been done.
Today I am offering an alternative response if you happened to have had an overindulgent “episode” this holiday weekend. The best way to avoid a weight-gain train wreck is to get off the train of overeating at the very next (food) stop. If, for instance, you went to an afternoon BBQ and found yourself splurging on calories, don’t consider the whole day a wash, and then proceed to pound down a huge dessert. Pull in the reins, 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, re-calibrate, and enjoy simply sampling the special foods you next encounter with renewed control. This way your holiday celebration will leave you with fond memories of food and fireworks, instead of an explosion of guilt (and indigestion)…and a couple of pounds that’ll need to be shed.