Start right now!!

I just wanted to write a quick post urging everyone, as we get closer and deeper into the holiday season, to remember that your health and your body are precious things. 

I'm not saying to not enjoy the holidays, or some treats, or to find pleasure in food. I do all those things. I think it's very normal, natural, and a big part of human evolution. We like to feast. We like to celebrate. It stimulates something in our brains - especially for those of us in cold-weather areas, feasting during winter is a long-held tradition.

But there's a difference between celebrating and overindulging. There's a difference between finding pleasure in your food and destroying your body.

To me, there's only a few days where I indulge during the holiday season. And most of those days, the indulgences are small. The big indulgences come on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

I am weighing in at 120.2 pounds today. It is proof to me that over 90% of my time and my days during this holiday season are spent eating and behaving as if I care about my health, first and foremost.

It's so important to not fall into the cyclical trap.

To truly believe it is possible to meet your goals. To truly believe it is possible to maintain your health and fitness at this time of the year.

Don't wait for New Year's day, I urge you.

You can start being mindful and careful and protective of your health right now, right this minute, today. It doesn't mean that you don't get to sit down with your family and have a traditional dinner on Christmas. It doesn't mean you don't get to enjoy some candy this holiday.

It does mean that most of the things you do should be to your benefit - not your detriment.

I indulged last weekend when I had a holiday get together. But I didn't indulge on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and I won't today. I'll eat my normal food, that fuels my body (and tastes pretty damn good!).

For example, my day yesterday looked like:

Breakfast- yogurt and coffee

Lunch - sweet potato soup (with added ground turkey)... This was a very big portion and a very hearty lunch.

Snack - dark chocolate!!

Dinner - 3 eggs with mushrooms, on a bed of spinach, tomato and avocado

Snack - banana with sunflower seed butter

I love all those foods. Because I've eaten them for years. It's what my body is used to, it's what you have to do, you have to train yourself to want vegetables more than you want cookies! If you look at my daily food from five years ago or from 10 years ago, it looked very, very different. But I don't miss it. It's interesting to really think about that, I don't miss the bread, pasta, sweets.

I truly enjoy eating this way! Yesterday, I was actually looking so forward to my planned dinner of eggs and spinach and the like, I had to remind myself to actually wait till I was hungry to eat, because I wanted to eat it even when I wasn't hungry!

I won't say it's easy. But I'd really love it if more people than not didn't end this year heavier then they started, or unhappier with their body, or little more unhealthy.

I'm not looking forward to the flurry of New Year's blog posts with resolutions. I've never been a fan of New Year's resolutions, even when I was fat. I haven't made a New Year's resolution in a decade, I think!

Just something to think about. Most of the days between here and the end of the year should be lived pretty normally. But I'll be with you, having some treats on the special days :)

Namaste, my friends.