Festive season?

[Mick G]

I am now at the point in training where I would usually quit (6 months) but I have in my head that I want to keep this up for life (or a hell of a long time anyway)

I am happy with my routine and diet at the moment and to keep me focused in the new year I have my own goals with 2 month and after that another 3 month intervals,but my biggest goal is to see where I'm at this time next year:cool3:

What I have learned here in this short amount of time is that before you start anything, be clear in your mind about what you want and visualise it.

Diet is the main factor to your goals.

Train hard as it is NOT easy especially at the start, but it does get easier.

There is a huge amount of info in the stickies as well as a lot of friendly and knowledgeable people here....so to everyone (I know I'm a bit early) merry Christmas:jumping:



Here's my question, with the holidays around the corner, is it ok to 'indulge' a bit and then return to whatever normality is afterwards?

Can't help feeling guilty before its even started

 

[subdude]

Merry Christmas to you as well.

Of course, it's your own life, and you can be as disciplined as you want to be. But I would answer your question by saying yes, you can indulge a bit. But since you want to avoid getting carried away, it's good to at least casually track what you're eating and drinking.

Here are my own guidelines that I try to follow:

1. Avoid eating unhealthy things I'm not excited about eating. If I'm going to indulge, it better be something I love. This might seem like an obvious thing, but how often do people eat fatty things that aren't even something they really like? It's pretty common.
2. Take a smaller piece. Sure, half a serving might leave you wanting more, but this I know for certain: the first half of any dessert is always better than the second half, but both halves have the same amount of fat and calories. Dessert should be a treat, not a major portion of the meal.
3. As much as possible, eat desserts made from scratch. When people make desserts from scratch, they are less likely to be full of trans-fat and a whole bunch of artificial crap. Someone who makes something from scratch may use trans-fat containing margarine, but chances are good the dessert will use vegetable oil, butter, or a non-hydrogenated oil margarine-alternative. In contrast, many of the pies and cakes I see at the stores have shameful amounts of trans-fat in them. I avoid them like the plague.
4. Remember that alcohol has a lot of calories---about 90 per standard drink just from alcohol (not including any sugar or fat that might be in the drink). Soda pop of course has a lot too. The dangerous thing about alcoholic drinks as well as sweetened drinks is that one can usually drink quite a few without getting filled up. At least with rich desserts, you can only have so much and you don't want anymore.