The holidays are surrounding us on all sides, and along with holidays come all sorts of parties to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice and New Year’s Day(also for a little added random knowledge, January 1st is also considered the birthday of every competition race horse in the northern hemisphere). In addition to those traditional holiday parties, there are work holiday parties, end of the fiscal year parties, cookie exchange parties, white elephant parties, and heck I’ve even been to a baby shower this month (seriously, are dudes supposed to be going to those things?).
The one thing that is common to all these parties, besides that they are parties, is the presence of ample amounts of food and booze(okay, not so much booze at the cookie exchange, but there is a surprising amount of alcohol flowing at a white elephant). As the year comes to a close and we look to see how our fitness goals have been met through bootcamp, many of us look to our handy dandy scale to reaffirm our belief that we’ve done a good job forgetting that we’ve impeded our progress with some good natured accidental holiday binging. Let me tell you this before you step on that scale… STOP!!!
Before you step on the scale think about how you feel. Easier to breathe when you run? Pants looser? Is a belt just a fashion accessory or is it actually keeping your pants up? I ask these questions because for me they have all been yes. I stepped on a scale Saturday morning and I was around 181.8 pounds. Monday morning and four parties later (baby shower, white elephant, kid’s birthday party and Benihana birthday dinner) and I was at 187.8 pounds. I gained six pounds in 48 hours!!! I’m not going to lie, I panicked a little bit. All the hard work of bootcamp and I had ruined it in 2 days!! If you’ve had moments like that, remember that the scale is not the end all and be all(I feel that is a repeating theme in my blog posts). I repeat, don’t trust just the scale, go back to the beginning of this paragraph and ask yourself those three questions(or questions of a similar ilk):
Easier to breathe when you run?
Pants looser?
Is a belt just a fashion accessory or is it actually keeping your pants up?
Answer yes to any of those questions(or of any of your own personal questions)? If so, then ignore the number on the scale for the time being. After a tremendous weekend of weight gain, let your body process the food and alcohol you’ve ingested. According to my friends over at WebMD (I don’t actually have friends there, but I have visited their website), part of the digestive process includes going through the large intestine where food debris (“food debris” sounds so much nicer that the other words I could’ve used) may spend a few days traversing on its way out of your body.
So the moral of the story? There are few actually:
First, try to go to parties with moderation on your mind. Don’t drink and eat everything!
Second, if you have troubles with moderation like I do, don’t step on a scale right away!! If you do, do it with the mindset that the weight you see is not a true indicator of your health. What is an indicator of is that you should should’ve looked at lesson number one and practiced a little moderation(trust me, i’m not judging. If you think I am, go back to the part of this post where I say I gained 6 pounds in 2 days!!).
Third, continue what you’ve been doing to get in shape and healthy. Keep hitting up your bootcamp classes and wait one week after the holiday parties for your body to cleanse itself and get used to your regular food patterns (assuming that binging is not your regular food pattern!). After that week, I’m betting the scale won’t be as big an enemy as you or I think it is.
With all that being said…. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!
****any questions or comments can be directed to the facebook page or directly to me(fellow bootcamp-er) at foxbehungry@gmail.com or twitter.com/foxbehungry****