Hippo Holiday Time

[specialmom]

That's my funny title. Are you laughing? Ha ha.  But really, this is a challenging time of year for me. Busy and a little stressed so can easily not do any exercise and the holiday traditions with food. Um, can you say temptation! I like to bake (not good at it though) and cook (better at this) and get nervous socially so find myself grazing and eating due to this . . . somehow it's easier to make small talk at a function if I've got a plate of appetizers in my hand. Some think weight loss and fitness is just for aesthetics . . . but some of us actually have health conditions tied to it. My blood pressure moves with my weight gain or loss due to familial hypertension. I'm trying to mentally prepare for what is to come. Next week is a big eating week. Then it's like six weeks of gorging it feels like. Do you worry about this or just go with it? Do you strategize to minimize the effect? What do you do?

[Barb135]

I'm a little late to the party, but I try not to let the holidays derail me.  I tend to do what makes the holidays good for the family and myself, without adding a ton of weight to my own body.   I do some baking, but not a lot and now that my kids are grown, I do even less.  Although my daughter is close enough to come spend Thanksgiving and Christmas Days with us, our gatherings are usually relatively short because she, typically, has other places to go (when she was married, it was in-laws now it's getting her daughter to her ex's...) so we, basically, have time for a meal, short visit, with dessert and that's about it.  They've even been known to take dessert with them!!  

Aside from all that, I'm lucky that sweets aren't my craving.  For me, it's the mashed potatoes and gravy, sandwiches, baked potatoes and sour cream, mac and cheese - all those good comfort foods.   Ever since I've had hypothyroidism and am much more susceptible to weight gain than I was prior, I've tried to focus on portion size more than anything else, but also figuring out healthier ways to fix some of those comfort foods.   It just seems that they aren't as comforting if they're not made the "old fashioned" way so I go back to portion size.

The holidays are a time to be enjoyed and for me, it's best to just go ahead and eat what I want (within reason) and try to add a few more veggies, so I don't ruin everything with "dieting" or feeling deprived.  

There are times throughout the year when I get in the mood to bake; thankfully, I, typically, end up giving away most of what I make because husband and I can't eat it all, even though he loves his sweets.  I do have a calligraphy guild meeting and we have a woodworking meeting every month and I can always take my offerings to a meeting to be eaten.  :-)

[AnnieBrooke]

Just recently, I decided to try not eating anything that tastes sweet. There is hidden sugar in a lot of foods, but at least I can avoid the overt sugar. We'll see how that goes! lol

[Jade59]

I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised.  I friend of mine cut out all sugar recently.  She lost 20 lbs.  I think it took less than 2 months.  I don't think it's realistic to cut out all sugar though.  One needs some kind of reward once in a while otherwise it's easy to go off the deep end.  

My husband and I have never kept sweets of any kind in the house.  Although about a year ago, we began buying those 1 cup servings of ice cream when we go to the market (after all, eating no desert Ever, is just cruel! lol), but that's every 3 wks.  I've made the mistake of buying a pint maybe 2 times in the last 2 years...and ate it all in one sitting.  I had a terrible sweet tooth when I was much younger, but I've  found by limiting sweets, I hardly crave them at all anymore.  I get plenty of sugar still, don't get me wrong, because like you said, there's an outrageous amt of sugar in most foods.  

Good luck!

    

[AnnieBrooke]

Thanks. When we didn't have any children, my husband and I never had sweet things around the house. But now we have a teenager. Since my resolve to stop eating anything tasting sweet, I've left his Kind bars and chocolate biscuits alone, but it would be easier if they weren't here at all. I did throw away all the extra Halloween candy! :-)

[specialmom]

Sugar is interesting. My sweet tooth is fierce. I can't deny it and inherited it from my mom, a secret midnight cheesecake devour-er. My sister doesn't have the issue. I'm not even kidding, put something sweet in my house and it can be all out internal war to keep myself from eating way too much. My kids have joked, hide it from mom. Sigh.  

I did lose a lot of weight a few years ago (don't get excited, it all came back . . . ) and cut way way down on sugar. What I noticed is that after an initial 'adjustment' (watch out, I might yell at you for looking at me . . . ), I kind of lost the craving or taste for sugar. Things that tasted like they could use some sweetener before now tasted too sweet. It was weird. Kind of cool. Abnormal for me. But we do adjust that way.

I try not to purchase a lot now. But like to bake some goodies in the month of December. It feels homey to me. Kind of traditional. And everyone at our house appreciates it so is kind of fulfilling to do. So, I probably WILL bake some.

But have figured out how to have less sugar around. Buy less. Have less. Halloween candy is a beast for me as I tend to overbuy and then you know . . . it's here. Speaking to me saying 'eat me. I won't hurt you (lie). Eat me so I'm gone and this is over"  All of it works and I eat it.

But my REAL issue is SAVORY foods. I like to make a delicious dinner with some goopy sides (mac and cheese, funeral potatoes, green bean casserole, mashed potato casserole heavy on the sour cream and cheese, beef stew, sausage soup . . . oh, the list is long). During the 'regular' months, I intersperse a dinner like that with something like boring chicken or terrible homemade fish. Salad. Plain broccoli. I mean, it is good-ish at the time but I'm not asking for seconds. It's basically food filling up the void in my stomach.

Life is hard when you have the love of food and aren't supposed to spend so much time with it.

[AnnieBrooke]

I do find that if I stop eating things that taste sweet, the cravings for sweets reduce pretty quickly. The physical cravings, that is. The mental cravings are a different thing! At the time of day when I'd have a cup of coffee and a Little Schoolboy, I have my coffee and miss the Little Schoolboy even if I have something else to eat with the coffee. It's a place-and-time habit then.

Yeah, Halloween is the wake-up call about bad habits over the holidays. Then we have pies at Thanksgiving and rice pudding at Christmas, not to mention family Christmas cookies. I don't think I'd get fat on turkey and potatoes, but I could eat holiday sweet things way past being full.

[specialmom]

That's true about the mental craving. I associate baking, for example, with warmth and childhood memories. It's like a mental happy place. That's what I mean about when I make cookies or cakes or pies at the holiday time. It conjures that sensation of homey, supportive momism.  I get a lot of encouragement from the family for it too when I do it. That emotional aspect calls to me. I get that. For sure. I try to do other things in that area of warmth. But for some reason, holidays make me want to GO to that happy place. We used to do a family cookie exchange for years and I have so many funny and happy memories from it. We kept it up after my mom died for a while but it just kind of fell off and stopped. I'm sure when it comes to baking at the holidays, it may also be a connection to my own mom who wore the apron, made a day out of baking and it was such a sweet memory to me. Okay, now I'm melancholy. That actually makes me think no big deal to bake and have some days of extra sweets in the house. lol