What Holiday Eating & Driving Have in Common by Joan Kent, PhD
Nutrition coaching can be gratifying when clients get results. Or frustrating when clients fail to follow instructions, particularly for reasons that seem illogical or self-destructive.
Look at weight-loss timing. Much damage can occur from the time we go off-course with our eating to the day we decide – arbitrarily – is the “right” day to begin anew.
That Diets-Start-on-Monday Thing
Who first decided that Monday is the right day to begin healthful eating? A lot of self-sabotage can happen between deciding you need to change your diet and that new-leaf Monday.
Maybe the time span is only the weekend. Plenty of junk-outs can still crop up in anticipation of Monday’s deprivation.
And if you fall off your new food plan on Tuesday or Wednesday? What will the rest of the week look like if you wait till the following Monday? Imagine how many extra desserts or drinks you might squeeze in, how many extra pounds you might gain.
Don’t Wait for New Year’s Day, Either
For that matter, who decided that January 1 is the re-set day after holiday chaos? The holiday season lasts at least 5 weeks. Why go through the same behaviors, and then set the same goals every New Year?
Two clients – married to each other – used to drink their way heavily through the year and “dry out” (their words) in January. I discovered their January dry-out didn’t last the full month of January. It barely covered the first 3 weeks of the year.
We needed to make changes.
A few other clients of mine have difficulties with sugar, alcohol, and weight gain. They’ve told me (separately) that they intend to keep eating and drinking through the holidays and start following a healthful plan in January.
Again, changes seem to be in order.
Food, Alcohol, and Highway Lane Dividers
What if we delayed fixing other things in our lives? Driving, for example.
No doubt you’ve momentarily driven over the raised lane dividers on the road – the ones that make the tires bump when you move into the next lane. What did you do?
It’s not a trick question. You probably course-corrected immediately and centered yourself back in your lane. It’s the only safe and sane thing to do.
The crazy, self-destructive decision would be to let the car keep moving into the wrong lane until it crashed with another vehicle because you were waiting for the Right Time.
Course Correction Is Everywhere
In other examples, we notice when we’re off course and adjust instantly.
All travel – spacecraft, airplanes, sailboats – involves course correction without delay. Entrepreneurs risk failure if they don’t plot a new direction when a business drifts off-course.
Hopefully, healthful eating is a plan you’ll follow for the rest of your life. Forget starting on a Monday, or New Year’s Day, or first thing in the morning. We’re in the middle of the holiday season now. Sugar, alcohol and junk foods are everywhere.
Why not view your health as a lifetime project? Whatever harm you may have done thus far this season, just stop and course correct. Anytime – and sooner is better than later. Imagine the wreckage you can prevent if you course correct now, instead of waiting a few more weeks.
All-or-nothing thinking is a rigid perspective that can get us in trouble if we let it. True flexibility can handle a few indulgences by getting back on target right away, at the very next meal.
Just do what you’d do if you crossed over a lane divider. Steer back and re-center immediately. It may be exactly that important for your health.
Looking for help with your holiday or post-holiday food plan? Perfect, because I make it easy. Just visit http://www.LastResortNutrition.com and grab your free Empowered Eating Consult. Discover how small tweaks can make a big difference and help you feel fantastic.
Brought to you by Dr. Joan Kent, best-selling author of Stronger Than Sugar: 7 Simple Steps to Defeat Sugar Addiction, Lift Your Mood, and Transform Your Health.
