Tackling the holidays
December 26th, 2007 by Y.G.So It’s Boxing Day, and although it’s still a holiday in my area of the country, I know it’s not the same for everyone. It might mark the end of family visits and of the cooking craze, or getting back to work, or simply enjoying a quiet day. But whatever it is, now is the moment to gather ourselves and not let everything go to the drain.
In years past, I among many others would also think that “it’s the holidays, I’ll eat properly again in January only: after all, New Year is coming, and I know we’ll eat a lot on that day again”. Wrong attitude. There are quite a few days in between, and they’re just the right time to try and minimize the ‘damage’, so to say.
It won’t spoil your holidays and other incoming family/friends dinners if you still take some time everyday to exercise (even half an hour of walking is good!). And if your liver and pancreas are like mine, they will actually thank you if you pay attention to foods again during these few days. The holidays don’t mean we have to arrive on January 2nd with the feeling that we’ve gained 20 pounds and are about to burst out of our clothes, nor that medication to help with digestion is a must-have. After all, it is not very enjoyable, and I find that it detracts from the pleasure of enjoying good food. Perhaps the motto “everything in moderation” is never so true as during this period of the year?
Therefore, please don’t wait until everything is over to get back to a healthy routine. It doesn’t matter if it gets ‘interrupted’ again by New Year–no kidding, there are so many opportunities for a healthy plan to be ‘interrupted’ that if we were afraid of that, we’d simply never start! What matters is that you will feel better, and able to really enjoy your meals on the day itself, if the previous days have not been loaded with more sugar.
