For the next three months, my calendar is dotted with food. I'll bet yours is, too.
Office chili potluck, Oct. 29. A friend's annual Fall Soup Festival (featuring a lot more than soup!), Nov. 21. Office holiday party, Dec. 8. Throw in the fact that I could eat my weight in Halloween candy corn and M&M "Fun Packs," plus Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and holiday Happy Hours with friends, and I feel ready to bust out my pooch pants.
I don't usually advocate strict calorie counting. I prefer a strategy of moderation and eating mostly clean foods (with occasional indulgences allowed) when your stomach signals it's hungry. Add in plenty of exercise, and you're golden.
But now through the New Year, opportunities for "occasional indulgences" multiply, and occasional begets "often." Before we know it, "often" begets those 5 to 10 holiday pounds that we end up vowing to work off come Jan. 1.
So why not focus for the next three months on doing what it takes to avoid the holiday gain? Those of you trying to lose can even put off your weight LOSS goals in favor of a weight MAINTENANCE goal. It's better to survive the holidays by holding steady than by gaining. And it means you'll have less to lose once you resume your weight loss journey post-holidays.
My strategy for maintaining during the holiday season? Count and Swap.
It means being aware, and honest, about what you're putting into your Badass and strategizing accordingly. Bethenny Frankel talks in her book "Naturally Thin" about how "you can have it all, just not all at once." This is so true during the holidays. It means you can have the egg nog, you just can't have the egg nog after a cheeseburger and fries at lunch. Instead, lunch is a grilled chicken salad and the egg nog counts as dessert.
Same goes with all the extra alcohol we consume. If you plan on having wine, consider it dessert or skip the bread basket at dinner. Have a lighter lunch. Skip the mid-afternoon cookie with latte if you have a holiday party later.
Your daily calories are like a bank, and attention must be paid to the balance sheet during the holidays. Otherwise: Badass bloats up to....well, ya know, not-so-Badass!
So as the Halloween candy rears its head and gives way to holiday pies and warm Starbucks drinks, consider this calorie tally sheet:
- Nestle’s Crunch – Fun Size, 3 bars: 210 calories
- Peanut M&M’s – Fun Pack, 2 bags: 80 calories
- M&M’s – Fun Pack, 2 bags: 180 calories
- Snicker’s – Fun Size, 2 bars: 160 calories
- Milky Way – Fun Size, 2 bars: 150 calories
- Starbucks Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte: 400 calories, 63 carbs, 8 grams of fat. (You'd have to get on the rowing machine and go at it intensely for 30 to 45 minutes to burn it off.)
- Starbucks Venti Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha: 590 calories, 15 grams of fat, 98 carbs. (That penance will cost you an hour in the saddle for a cycling class.)
- Egg Nog, 1 cup: 343 calories, 19 grams of fat, 34 carbs
- Pecan Pie, 1 slice: 456 calories, 21 grams of fat, 65 carbs
- Candied Sweet Potatoes, one cup: 400 calories
- Stuffing, one cup: 356 calories
- Hot chocolate with whipped cream, one cup: 260 calories
- White Russian, one cup: 386 calories
- Hot Buttered Rum, one cup: 292 calories
Coming Monday: Pushups come in many forms...try them all!