I love those people who say eat this instead of this for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas and even New Year’s. You know those people who say eat one cracker, a carrot, a lot of celery and drink sparkling water and you will be fine. We’ve waited the entire year for this food, and we know the consequences of overeating and under exercising. It’s the holiday season which means it’s the no exercise and way too much food season. I mean good food, you know cakes and pies with specialty alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks to help the food go down. The holiday season probably started with Halloween when we ate the left over candy that we had.
There is cheese other than American or Cheddar with a sprinkle of carrots and celery for show. There is Christmas shopping on Thanksgiving Day for gifts, for more food and drink and much more. There is so little time and so much to do so who has the time to exercise? What’s a girl to do? As we have matured our metabolism has gone down, and hips, bellies and everything else seems to get bigger doing the holiday season when they say we will gain 6 to 10 pounds in less than a month.
Let’s try to figure out what we can do to get our exercise in, and control our eating habits. I love the people who say eat before you leave home. Sounds good, but not feasible—it’s holiday food, not regular old food. There is someone bringing Christmas Cookies (I love that song by George Strait) everyday to work, and besides it is the holiday season. Have a cookie or two; who eats one Christmas cookie if they are good? Go to the Christmas parties at work, eat the “good” cheese, another cookie, drink the punch and have fun. Don’t beat yourself up when you think about it. After the party grab your coworker and walk for 20 minutes, too cold outside then do it inside. If you have someone to walk with you, it will go fast. Walk at a brisk pace, but walk. You had your Christmas goodies and exercise too. Walk as much as you can at
work during the holiday season. The party was at night then go home and put on old disco music, you know when you were in college the kind that lasted 15 to 20 minutes and dance like you did back then. If you want a special coffee drink, and there is a coffee stand close by—yes walk to it. Sit there and drink it and walk back to home or work. Take your marker with you so that you can draw your own Christmas design on the red cup.
You’ve got 2 or 3 parties in one weekend and you want to attend them all. What are you going to do? A friend of mine says to wear the that body hugging outfit—the one that you can get away with. She says that since you are a woman of a certain age, and you can still rock it, you will not eat too much because it would spoil the effect. Sounds good to me. Food or fashion?
Another friend says never go in eating, wait for a while, talk with the people at the party. Find someone interesting even if it is just the hostess or the person you came with. Don’t sit for a while, stand and walk. Finally get food and drink, yep get them both. It’s kind of hard to eat a lot when you have two items to hold. Remember how hard it will be to take the weight off after the holidays. If nothing else, decide on which party you think will have the best food and drink. Be polite at the other parties eating a small amount. Save your calories for the good stuff.
Still running to the mall and shopping center to buy gifts. Make it an exercise day too. If you don’t have to go back to your car after buying your gifts, go back to the first store and walk the entire property once or twice as fast as possible in the Christmas rush. Don’t stop to look at something else, just walk.
You can start your walking routine during the Thanksgiving holiday. A lot of places have Turkey Trots featuring 5K and 
10K races the morning of Thanksgiving. Make it an exercise tradition to do one of these walks. I am not a Black Friday shopper, but just to get some exercise go to the mall—leaving your credit/debit cards at home. Just walk.
Do not bring food home with you—leave it there no matter how good it is–not even Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Dream about it for the next holiday, but leave it there. Why do you think they are giving it to you?
Have to bake something for the Christmas season, bake your least favorite cake, pie or cookie, one that you rarely if ever eat. Make sure what you bake is tasty, just not what you like. The ones you like taste even better warm. Skip the cleaning lady, and deep clean your house after the holiday season, mop, vacuum, dust and more–it’s a great workout.
Do other things instead of just eating for the holidays, see what is going on in your area because who is going to eat carrots and celery for the holiday season? Not me cause George and I sure do like those Christmas cookies. Eat, enjoy and exercise. Remember “thisisyourbestyear”.
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