Expanded waistlines have pretty much been accepted as the norm around this time of year.
Christmas pudding, cocktails, huge family get-togethers, parties and picnics seem to conspire against our usual healthy eating habits. And so come January, most of us have “get rid of holiday weight” on our list of New Year’s resolution. But it isn’t normal. There is no biological reason to pick up a few kilos during this time of the year.
Healthy, normal adults should have fairly consistent weight throughout their lifetimes. If an individual’s weight shifts up and down, there is something inducing unstable eating behaviour, and if we understand what that is, we can do something about it.
Here are a few common culprits:
1. The chronic dieter falls off the wagon
I’ve heard it a thousand times before, “somewhere, around Christmas time, I let it all slip. I threw caution to the wind, I let go.” This person is what I call a restrained eater or chronic dieter. They follow draconian food rules during the year, employing huge willpower to eat less food, and less satisfying food. But when they let go, rather than simply stopping this restrictive behaviour, they catapult way over it, like a tightly wound spring that has finally been released. They overindulge in the foods they would never normally allow themselves, making the most of their temporary freedom.
The solution: Get off the wagon, and stay off it.
Eating foods you enjoy, in satisfying amounts throughout the year, is a sustainable and healthy way to eat. The key word here is satisfying; get to grips with your satiety levels and eat accordingly. If you feel the need to take a break from your food rules every now and then, they are too strict.
2. The “see food, eat food” eater
When family and friends spend leisure time together, there is generally a lot of food around. Full biscuit jars and home-made rusks, pastries from the local bakery, fruit platters, biltong from the farm, cheese and biscuits, chips and dips… all in the name of hospitality and having a good time.
If an eater responds to visual cues to eating (where seeing food makes them eat), they are in trouble, because there is food to see all the time!
The solution: Before eating anything, ask yourself: am I eating just because it is there and I see it, or do I really want it
If you are not tasting and savouring your food and consciously eating it, it is wasted. Learn to respond to internal cues to eating (whether you are actually hungry) and not external ones (seeing or smelling food).
3. Buffet blunderers
Buffets with incredible displays of fancy foods entice people to eat far more than they ordinarily would. The thought process is: this is a special treat, I’ve paid for this already, and to really make it worth my while, I must eat as much as possible, because that is where the value lies.
The solution: Break this pattern by changing your idea of where value lies, and of how a special treat should leave you feeling. The value is not in the food alone, it is in the whole experience. The beautiful setting, the fine china, the fact that you don’t have to wash your own plate or prepare your own meal, the music, the presentation, the good company. Overeating is not necessary to derive the benefit. Ask yourself how you’d like to feel after a special treat: stuffed, heavy and uncomfortable with indigestionm How can it be a treat when the outcome is so negativet A treat should add to your sense of wellbeing, not detract from it.
4. Alcohol
Sipping on a cocktail or a glass of wine at sunset is a holiday pleasure I would never suggest South Africans give up, but having a glass with lunch and then pre-dinner drinks and wine with dinner and post-dinner drinks quickly becomes too much.
The solution: Make the most of your environment, whether it’s the beach, climbing mountains, swimming, surfing, cycling or hiking. People who protect their sobriety most fiercely, are those who want to be fresh in the morning to catch those first waves or jump on their bikes or focus on the ball. Don’t fight a bad habit, just push it aside with a good one!
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