Let the holiday season begin!

 

I can't believe that it is already December! The holiday season is wonderful and filled with so many wonderful opportunities to spend time with family and friends. Filled with parties and activities...and food. I think the holidays, no matter which one you celebrate, brings challenges to anyone on a diet. It is so easy to think that you are celebrating and you deserve a treat and I know this will be a struggle for me.

I love christmas cookies! Don't put the chocolate chip cookies near me! Realistically, you cannot go an entire holiday season and not be near cookies. Inevitably you will go to a party, someone's house...anywhere really...and christmas cookies will be there at this time of year. I found that gum helps or mints. If you are chewing gum you can't eat a cookie as easily, same with sucking on a mint. I heard a great tip for Halloween candy for Weight Watchers members and I am going to apply it to christmas cookies. The tip for Halloween candy was if you know you are going to eat it then select 49 points (the extra weekly allowance) and make a bag with that candy. When you've finished those extra points over the week then you are done. You still got your Halloween candy, you weren't deprived, but you preemptively restricted yourself. So for christmas cookies my plan is to make myself a 49 point bag for that week and that will be my allowance.

Besides that, you need to rely on your own willpower. Today I was faced with my first challenge...the potato patch...I mean look at it even in all of its glory decorated so nicely:

I live in Pittsburgh (pretty much the best city ever!) and Kennywood is an amazing place. It is a local theme park, actually also the movie (not a really good one) Adventureland was filmed there. It is open for the holiday season and decorated with lights and the KiddieLand is open for all the kids, I brought my niece. Anyway, it is a tradition for everyone pretty much to go to Kennywood and when you go you get potato patch fries. They are amazing! Well, today I skipped the potato patch and I will celebrate the little victories! Instead of wasting all the great walking tonight through the park by eating that very fatty treat, I said no and I still had a wonderful time!

I guess when it comes down to the holidays this year all of us losing weight need to remember why we want to lose weight in the first place and know that the benefits of skipping that extra cookie or traditional snack at wherever you like to go because in the end it will be worth it! Very motivated to see the scale go down and never see this weight again!

Anyone have any tips or strategies for the holiday season? Please share them!