December 2015 – Avril Carpenter

Hooray – the holiday season is nearly here….fa la la la la…time to celebrate!

But, since food and drink take centre stage at most of our celebrations, it can be easy to overeat without even realising it.

How can you avoid the dreaded holiday weight gain – but still enjoy festive indulgences?

Here are 5 holiday survival tips to help you navigate the chaos of the festive season:

1. Eat Slooowly

I hear you! I get that it sounds very, very low tech.

But you see, we all have an enzyme in our gut that tells our brain when we’re full. Thing is – this enzyme takes 15 minutes to travel from our gut to our brain. So if you’re speedily shovelling in the Christmas turkey or frantically scoffing the hors d’oeuves, it’s oh so easy, to go from famished to absolutely stuffed, before your brain even has a chance to register the “I’m done!” signal.

One of the easiest ways to slow your eating is to put your knife and fork down between mouthfuls. Slooow down, chew your food and be present.

Who knows – you might even the opportunity to converse and engage with others around the table. How civilised!

2. Alternate your Christmas tipple

All those free cocktails at the work do, and the bottles of bubbly at the neighbour’s BBQs can be a culprit for unwanted excess. In the spirit of Christmas, one glass can swiftly become, um, well…..substantially more.

But who wants to be a teetotaller? Not me!

A simple way to address the excess holiday drinking is to alternate your alcohol with a glass of water.

Again, I get it – it sounds pedestrian. But it works (and your head will thank you in the morning when you wake up, hangover-less).

3. Connect with family and friends NOT food

Instead of focusing on the inevitable food and drink during the festive season, I encourage you to spend focus on connecting with people gathered around the table.

At the party, make a conscious effort to seek out a conversation with your out-of-town colleague. Have a chat with your favourite aunt and really connect with them.

You see, when we have an enjoyable connection with people, we change the biochemistry in our body. During social engagement with loved ones, the ‘good-feeling’ hormone oxytocin is increased, which decreases our desire for food.

So, connect with your cousin and get the naturally-occurring appetite suppressants flowing!

4. Move your body, every day

Set the intention to move your body every day. It’ll help with processing any extra food, and it’ll also help with holiday stress.

Perhaps it’s a brief walk after your meals with the family. Maybe it’s a solitary stroll after your meals to avoid the family (!!!). Maybe you could toss the football outside with your grandkids for some fresh air.

The key is to keep it simple – do not overcomplicate it. Just get your body moving – even a 10-minute stroll does wonders for your body.

5. Express your gratitude

We all have much for which to feel grateful.

Even if you’re going through a tough time – maybe Santa didn’t deliver or maybe your dearly beloved is absent. Perhaps money / time / nerves feel stretched. You still have oooooodles for which to be grateful.

Remember, that when we focus on gratitude, we feel more grateful, and we start to have the realisation that – there’s an awful lot that we want ….. that we already have!!!

So, keep focusing on the aspects in your life that bring joy, and a smile to your lips.

The festive season is a time of celebration, love and gifts. Why not use these five tips so that you can give yourself the gift of health?

Wishing you all happy, healthy holidays!

Love etc, Avril

PS: If you’d like a helping hand so that you can start your 2016 with weight loss momentum, maybe hypnotherapy is exactly what you need. Why not come on over and start a conversation?

“I’ve failed sooo many diets, I don’t even know where to begin!” – is the despair of many women.

No doubt you’re familiar with your own pattern.

Perhaps you catch a glimpse of yourself on Facebook, or maybe it was something someone said.

So…

…you search Google for the latest diet. You start planning your food. Maybe you join a gym.

Your teeth are gritted, your fists clenched, your committed declaration is “this time will be different!”

Anyone who’s uttered these words knows, if these tactics worked… they’d have worked by now.

Yet we keep telling ourselves the same story, repeating the same pattern in the desperate hope that this time we’ll fit our jeans.

Sure, making a plan is good.

But…

…when we haven’t closed the door on the shame and self-loathing we carry in our heads about our past failures, we are doomed to slip back into our old self-sabotage-y habits.

Our shiny new declarations won’t mean a thing.

So, the big question really is …

…what is the first step towards permanent weight loss?

Start afresh.

Clean the slate … with the F-Word.

With F-O-R-G-I-V-E-N-E-S-S.

Uh-huh.

Forgive yourself for past diet failures. Stop obsessing about why you didn’t succeed in the past. And …definitely stop telling yourself that something is wrong with you.

There’s an immense power in forgiveness. A release. A newness.

Disappointment, anger, guilt, shame, resentment are destructive. They eat away at us, they weigh heavily on our hips and hearts, and are absolutely incompatible with making peace with food.

All that emotional baggage will predispose your brain to fail.

Because as soon as you stumble, (and you will stumble – it’s part of the journey), you’ll give up and quit on yourself.

And quitting is the guarantee that you’ll never shift the weight.

How do you give yourself a clean start?

It takes practice. Gently observe your language and start catching yourself when you say, “This’ll never work” or “Why do I even bother?”

These language cues are a heads-up you’re still lugging that suitcase of old emotional “stuff” with you. You’ve fallen into the habit of letting your past create your future.

Turn to a new page. Forgive yourself. (You’re human!)

Start fresh.

Who cares how many times you’ve stumbled previously!

Starting clean and fresh, with a heart full of forgiveness is the first step towards permanent weight loss.