Conquering Christmas

NOTE: Please remember to check back in tomorrow when my 18 year-old daughter will once again guest post as she did yesterday. It is a piece she posted on her Facebook page about two special babies, Renee Swope’s Aster and the Babe in the manger. Stop by. I think reading it will give your Christmas a fresh perspective.

Welcome Weight Loss Wednesday gals! (If you are just happening upon this site  and want to join us on Weight Loss Wednesdays, click here to get caught up or simply leave a comment today. We’d love to have you!!)

Well, it is here.

The most tempting time of the year for a girl trying to watch her weight.

Christmas.

What will you face the rest of this week? What have you already faced?

I have been taunted by cookies and peppermint mocha lattes and fudge with walnuts and homemade fruitcake (no… I am not kidding. I am hired each year to make two of them for a friend, and my recipe makes three large loaves, so we keep one. It actually tastes wonderful!)

Ahead of me I have coming: honey ham with homemade sweet mustard sauce and cheesy potatoes and from-scratch rolls with butter; creamy eggnog and black forest cake and peanut butter buckeyes; my stocking will most likely sport dark chocolate from my family; my mom will get me some sweet goodies too as she does every year and she’ll make the most wonderful, traditional foods when we go to her house on Sunday. Neighbors are bringing us plates of treats; friends deliver dishes of candy and nuts.

Temptation is around every corner and staring me straight in the face.

So how can we conquer Christmas and its array of temptations? What will be our eating plan for the next week and a half?  I see three choices to ponder:

  • We could simply give up and not even try. After all, we could always just heartily enjoy the many seasonal treats any time we want this next week or so, not worry if a pound or two (or more) are gained and then hit the restart button after the first of the year.
  • Or, we can opt to sample the goodies in a sensible and occasional manner, savoring them slowly and hope to just maintain our current weight and not gain or lose.
  • Or we can grit our teeth, stick with the celery sticks and raw carrots and try to drop weight as if it were any other week on our corporate weight loss Wednesday journey. You know, ignoring those Christmas treats.

I’m choosing option number two. After a 2.1 pound loss this week, I feel I have a little wiggle room. So I am going to attempt to enjoy only my most favorite and looked-forward to treats and practice less and less often.

What will you do?

And how did your week go!  How are you feeling? How are your clothes fitting? Seeing any reflection in your eating obedience in the scales? Want to throw your scale out the window? Need to hit the “restart” button?

Do tell! We want to know!!!

(P.S. I haven’t decided for sure how long, but after tomorrow, I will be taking a blogging break. I want to focus solely on Kenz and the boys while she is home and Todd has a birthday next Wednesday. So I may not post a WLW piece that day if I decide to take the entire week off. But we will be back at it on January 6th!)

Praying for you!!!!

18 Comments

  1. I just found this – have never seen WLW before, but now hope to become a faithful reader. I started watching my portions and treats and exercising at the beginning of November, when I realized that for the fourth season in a row I could not fit back into my clothes. Not only am I at a point where I cannot keep affording to replace things with every season change, I realized that my weight increases along with a family history of type 2 diabetes is not healthy for me. I do not have a reliable scale at home (can anyone recommend a good one that is not too much money?) but from the doctor’s scale at my last appt. in mid-December, I have dropped two pounds over a three week time period. I’m proud of that given that Thanksgiving was right in the middle of that.
    Today is New Year’s Day and I will admit that while I did okay over Christmas, the get-together last night with all those cheesey and sausage-y snacks got to me. My strategy now is to admit that I am human, get right back to the healthier eating now that it’s a new day, and I plan to exercise an extra ten minutes at each session for the next week. I don’t plan to weigh myself (maybe that’s wrong, but it’s my plan) for another week since the current place in my menstrual cycle means that I am holding water right now anyway. I’m on the beginning of this journey, so any help you can offer me would be much appreciated. Thank you!

  2. Hi

    Just finally getting a chance to check in. I like choice number 2 which is basically what I have been doing since Christmas Eve.

    I did loose one pound last week. I think it is a great idea for Karen to take a week off! Family is very important.

    God’s peace and strength to all of you WLW gals. See you (or read you) in 2010!

  3. Wow, I was very tempted to not post. However, I do want to say how proud I am of all of you. I would love to say you inspired me, but instead, I think I feel even more worthless than before!! (very selfish of me) Though it’s not a consious choice, my actions so far this year have choosen #1. I didn’t weigh. I don’t want to know. It’s not been good. I feel terrible and am really upset with myself. I’m taking a break until next week because every time I screw up I beat myself to a pulp and I just can’t handle that right now. So, I need a little time off. Then next week, I’ll climb back in the saddle. Have a blessed Christmas, each one of you. May God give us all the strength to make it by the dessert table unscathed!!

  4. Cheryl!
    I finally had time to go check up on how you did at Cheesecake Factory–yeehaw you lost weight despite going over! :) I can now sleep peacefully knowing how you did LOL. Seriously, I haven’t been able to stop thinking “how did Cheryl do??”
    It was my birthday last weekend, so I had birthday cake twice, went out to eat (I made sure no Cheesecake Factory, chose Weber Grill and low fat chicken, although I couldn’t stop eating the pretzel breadrolls!!! yikes).
    And I did not exercise at all again. I’m still not getting to bed at a reasonable time, but I am finally done with making gifts and I plan to start exercising right after Christmas again.
    And no difference on the scale, forgot to update that.
    Sorry for posting twice.

  5. Merry Christmas!! We will get through this holiday! :)
    Fortunately, I was not asked to make desserts, except for Jesus’ bday cake. So there will be a limited choice. :) I haven’t baked for anyone this year, but I will for my husband’s uncle who is joining us to celebrate since he’s gone through a divorce. :(
    Karen, you deserve a break! It’s ok if we don’t see you Wed. Perhaps some of us won’t want to weigh in that week either! Enjoy your time with your family!!

  6. I have been baking all day, but I am only making enough to bring to Xmas parties. I don’t need anything extra sitting around. I like the looser feel of my jeans. I am trying to stick to my workouts, even though everyone elses schedules can interfere. The excuses for taking a break can be found very easily.

  7. Not sure if this is the right place or not, but I wanted to register for your book giveaway. I have 2 small children (4 & 20 mo) and this year we have been trying to focus on the true story of Christmas, not Santa. I have 2 nativities that I allow them to play with and they have been telling each other the Christmas story time and again. They know about Santa and can’t wait for him to visit, but they also know that Santa is just for fun. (This is why we have no Santa toys – only Jesus is real). So far it seems like an okay balance between the true point of this time and the fun of childhood.
    Ps: for WLW – I went to the gym for an hour BEFORE baking peanut butter cookies. That fits in #2, right?

  8. I will be doing option #2 as well. Just can’t grit my teeth and bear passing up on all treats. I am down three pounds since last Wed. I haven’t been too great at watching my eating, but I have faithfully exercised each day except for Sunday. Not too bad. I am choosing to focus on the fact that I am going for a lifestyle change. This exercising and eating properly is going to be a marathon for me–not a sprint. One day at a time and sometimes…one moment at a time. Merry Christmas!!

  9. Option #2 is my choice as well. I am down 1 this week and hoping to maintain during the next 2 weeks. I too plan to take some healthy snacks along with me, hoping it will help me to stay away from the chips and dip. Merry Christmas Karen and all WWL girls. Enjoy your time with family.

  10. My scale said I gained for pounds. How depressing and discouraging! I’ve enjoyed a little fruit cake and chocolate this past week but I wasn’t that bad. After standing on my scale last night I thought maybe I need to go back to my old way of eating (once a day and small portions). I’m not good at resisting the Holiday treats so I’ll enjoy myself but hopefully in moderation. I can start over in January, right?

  11. Hello!
    I’ve had a much better week! To help with Christmas at my parent’s house, I’m bringing some treats that I made so I know how many calories/fat are in them and they are healthier than most. That being said, I AM going to have those ‘once-a-year’ food items because I’ve been pretty good so far. I’m quite proud that I’ve even kept up with my exercise routine, despite the extremely hectic schedule.

    I’m keeping my focus on Christ, not food! :)
    Merry Christmas!
    -Amy

  12. Well, it seems that most everyone is going with option #2 as am I. My husband is a teacher and yesterday was the last day before vacation and they had their annual xmas party. So, I am now facing backs, boxes, and every other type of cutsie container you can imagine full of homemade cookies, candies, and even smoked ham! So, instead of being miserable and trying to ignore the amazing pile of goodies I will sample a turtle here, have a ham sandwich there, but all in moderation! It is an incrediblely tempting situation but if I can maintain I will be proud of the work accomplished!

  13. And I, too, am sticking up for good fruitcake! Heard on the radio the other day that 46% of people who receive fruitcakes throw them out. Maybe those are the “doorstop” manufactured ones? My grandma’s recipe and several others I know are wonderful. One lady at church gifts us with her Pecan Fruitcake. Over the years, she has removed ingredients that her husband doesn’t like. It’s pretty much down to maraschino (not candied) cherries, pecans and rum. A small piece with good coffee is very satisfying. Yum!

  14. I’ll also be doing option #2. Enjoying our once-a-year, Christmastime-only treats with intention and celebration, not randomly grazing.

    Hey, I gotta find a scale with tenths of a pound. You and Kim crack me up with your 1.8 and .9 weight losses. Using your pound of butter visual, I guess I would be able to think in terms of tablespoons of weight loss instead of sticks?

    My scale is staying the same, which is OK since I’ve already been applying Option #2 for a couple of weeks! I still am down 6+ pounds since the first week in November.

    Enjoy your time next week! I’m sure many of us would be happy to forego the after-Christmas weigh in anyway.

    Christmas blessings, friends!

  15. Good morning,

    This has been a better week for me. I still had a few goodies but didn’t eat the whole plate of anything and I found myself not licking the beaters etc. when I was baking. It all helped and I am down 1.5. Not a huge loss but still going down! I am going to choose option 2 as well. I definitely do not want to gain weight this week but not having any treats would not be fun either. As with Thanksgiving, I will try to get out and walk while we are away at our families houses. That is, if we can get there, we are supposed to get up to 18 inches of snow over the next few days. Yikes! I’m planning on giving some of what I have made to the neighbors today and the rest to relatives so I won’t be tempted with yummy things around my house. Have a super week with your family, Karen and everyone else. Merry Christmas!
    Rebecca Ann

  16. I’m with you on option “B”! I lost .9 lbs this week. All fall it has been coming off slowly, but I’m okay with it! (I’m down about 17 pounds since September). The cookies are my biggest challenge. However, my sister, mom and myself have decided to cut down on how much we are making!

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