Saturday, October 29, 2011

The Holidays begin....

In our family, the "Holidays" begin in October....

October is our craziest month for celebrations...it includes:


Our wedding Anniversary on the 15th (we celebrated 6 years of wedded bliss this year!!)
Isn't this the prettiest bunch of flowers you've every seen (I loved it!!)


Our daughter's birthday on the 20th (she turned 5 this year..where has the time gone??)
We headed to Disneyland a few days after her real birthday to celebrate and then had a party with our local family...which I made really cute rainbow cupcakes for!!


And of course...Halloween!!
Last night with church we attend Trunk or Treat to give the kids a chance to play with their friends and experience the Trick or Treat thrill on a much smaller scale.  Seriously, I may be slightly biased, but these are the cutest kids ever!!! Yet another wonderful inspiration to lose weight and get healthy...I want to be healthy enough to enjoy them growing up and see them have children of their own and be healthy enough to enjoy them too!!!

Now, with all these holidays comes LOTS and LOTS of cake and candy and junk food...So, this year I decided to create a plan of attack to handle all the empty calories bound to make it into our home and still stay on track for weight loss...and here are my plans:

#1 - I am not going to deny myself a treat when everyone else is enjoying one...doing so is almost more harmful since you then get depressed watching them all enjoy a tasty treat and in the end will probably end up eating more empty calories because of the emotion. Be responsible, just eat one cookie, or one piece of candy...just a small amount, enough to enjoy the treat and satisfy the craving!!

#2 - I am going to very carefully get rid of a good portion of the Halloween candy we get by either using it for projects we might have, or giving it away to other Halloween kids that come to the door (hey, who said re-gifting was a no-no on Halloween...if it's good enough for wedding presents, why not with candy??)

#3 - For birthday and anniversary situations, I ate conservatively at meal time so that I didn't have to feel guilty about enjoying dessert afterwards...because let's face it - the dessert is really the part we all look forward to!!

#4 - On weeks when I know there will be some indulging, I make it a point to try and exercise a little extra, to compensate for the extra calories.

#5 - THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE - I don't beat myself up over enjoying the season...worst case scenario you gain a few pounds over the holidays...so does most of the world's population.  New Year's Day you get out of bed, stand up tall and congratulate yourself for at least trying to watch what you ate and get back into your routine of eating healthy and exercising. If you're not eating those extra calories anymore you will lose the weight again in the next few weeks with exercise and watching what you eat.  The worst thing we can do is beat ourselves up for enjoying a treat...just do it all in moderation and you'll be fine!!!

I hope that all of you are getting into the Holiday spirit and just as excited as we are to start the season!! October is a crazy month for us, but November is just as bad with both mine and my hubby's birthday and Thanksgiving. When we celebrate the Holidays we like to make it as hectic as possible...it's more fun that way, right???

4 comments:

Briana said...

October begins my favorite time of the year. Sounds like you have a great plan in place.

Mrs. Gorbe said...

Great thoughts!
I had the SAME one about all the candy and putting it back in our bucket to hand out! LOL!

Fit Kitty said...

I like your philosophy. I think you'll get through the holidays with ease.

Lindsey Lu said...

happy anniversary! I like your plan! I try to keep treats out of the house, then I wont feel like Im missing anything and wont be tempted to eat them (all). If they are in the house I always send leftovers home with someone else! I crave treats really bad, they are my biggest weakness - so it is hard for me to resist (very hard LOL) but I just remind myself that its not "normal" to eat treats every day. I dont need them, my family doesnt need them. Just because the rest of America eats too much- doesnt mean we have to. And lets face it the rest of America is overweight. I think w/out sweets Id probably be thin LOL