My holidays did not go according to plan. My plan was to spend quality time with the family, work on my book and take a day or two to go to the beach. Instead, we had two family members in the hospital. By the grace of God, they were both home by Christmas at 7pm. Traditions were missed while our focus was elsewhere and of course emotions and stress were at an all time high. Needless to say this was not the vacation I had in mind.
That’s life though, right? You have to roll up your sleeves and keep moving forward helping those around you. Sometimes even the smallest tasks like picking up groceries, washing dishes, doing laundry, etc. can really help in these type of situations when you are thinking (or over-thinking) and hoping for a positive outcome. We were beyond grateful to have everyone home and eventually celebrated Christmas together.
CONFESSION: I have to admit that my eating habits were not good during this time. I was definitely emotionally eating. Through my education I know the signs of emotional eating and in the moment I knew that was what I was doing, but it was hard to stop the cycle once it started. When you are far away from home and outside your routine and not surrounded by a kitchen that supports clean eating…well, it was the perfect environment for me to go off the wagon, so to speak.
(Spoiler Alert: We health professionals slip up too!)
However, with every slip up is a lesson learned. Here are some tips on how you can recover from the holiday eats and treats you indulged in during the season. This is the process I just went through to reflect on why I made the decisions I did. If you don’t look inside yourself and figure out “the why” then you may never be truly free. I want to understand why I made these choices so that I can be better prepared for the next time I am faced with a similar emotion or situation.
I have nicknamed this process the RARE method.
- Reflect on why you made the decisions you did during the time in question. For me, I was upset about my family members who were in the hospital.
- Accept where you are at right this moment and tell yourself it’s okay. Don’t continue to beat yourself up over and over again for eating those french fries of holiday candy.
- Re-focus on your goals whether that be to lose 10-20 pounds or train for that upcoming marathon. The point is to get back on track with what you want and more importantly do not give up.
- Embrace the process and the bumps along the way. No one is perfect so try to make a better decision at your next meal. If you can find a way to plan ahead so you don’t get in jam and have to rely on the drive-thru.
If you indulged over the holidays like I did, you may want to hit the do-over button and try again. Since such a thing does not exist we can only control how we proceed today (in this moment) and moving forward. Stay tuned for my next article where I talk about how to start with small health goals that will add up to big results over time!
How are you going to recover from the holidays? Share your comments below or tweet @alisonbrehme
Image credit: Hotel Arthur via Flickr