How to Get Your Diet Back on Track when Your Eating Falls Apart: A Holiday Experience

One year I drove home and stayed with my family for a few days at Christmas and had the intention of eating as healthy as possible. I knew there would be some serious temptations and I expected my eating habits to be worse than normal, but I was still not adequately prepared for what I encountered.

Here is only a partial list of foods I was offered in my first 24 hours of being back at home:

Assorted cheesecake slices

Assorted cookies with fudge and Hershey kisses

Belgian Waffles

Biscotti

Black forest cake

Chex mix with M&Ms, popcorn, and cookies

Chips, crackers, etc.

Chocolate covered macadamia nuts

Chocolate covered almonds

Chocolate bride mix (assorted chocolate covered foods)

Desobry chocolates

Dove chocolates

Giant caramel apple covered in chocolate and candy

Ice cream

Pizza

Tin with three flavors of popcorn

Trail mix (mostly consisting of assorted chocolate pieces)

Before going on, I should point out that I have always had a weakness for chocolate and sugar and I rarely encounter a dessert that is too rich for my taste. This is one of the reasons I was fat when I was younger and even though my regular eating habits have become very good over the years, I still have a hard time turning down most desserts.

Having all these foods around me that I enjoy, but rarely ever eat, was a little too much for me and I ended up making more than my fair share of poor nutritional choices the first day I was there.

In truth, being exposed to this wide variety of tempting foods was difficult, but it was not the only problem during the holidays. Another issue had to do with the conflict between how I wanted to eat and how I was expected to eat.

It's one thing to refuse unhealthy foods from a friend or casual acquaintance, but saying no repeatedly to a family member can be a little more complicated. This is especially true if your family member gets enjoyment from having you eat their foods and gets depressed or feels bad when you keep refusing foods they offer you.

In the end, it comes down to having to make a choice between continuing to say no and potentially hurting a family member's feelings or eating unhealthy foods and hurting yourself. For me, I do my best to make the choice that minimizes harm to others, so I ended up feeling obligated to eat some of the unhealthy foods I was offered.

I know this sounds like I am making excuses for eating badly, but I do realize that regardless of the situation, I am still responsible for everything I put into my body. Even though things were difficult, I only had myself to blame for eating this badly, because in the end it was my choice.

Usually I choose to make healthier decisions, but this was one of the few situations where I let my environment dictate my eating habits. Even though I was declining most of the bad things I was offered, I was still eating a lot of junk food and my eating habits were far worse than normal.

During this time I really struggled with my eating choices and tried not to upset my family, but I just kept feeling worse and worse about myself. Of course, eating unhealthy foods was making me feel physically worse as well, which was certainly not helping the situation.

I felt myself reverting back to some of the very unhealthy habits I had when I was younger, which simultaneously made me feel angry and somewhat depressed. I really felt bad about the way things were going and I realized that if things did not change, they would only get worse.

Therefore, I made the conscious decision to put my health first and take back control of my eating. On Christmas morning I decided to challenge myself to eat as healthy as possible for the rest of my trip. As a result, I was able to get through Christmas day without eating any desserts at all. The following day I was not quite as good and I did have a blueberry muffin, but this was still way better than the day before Christmas.

The important thing was that my eating habits were much closer to usual and I was taking control of my choices. By taking responsibility for my eating behaviors and not letting my environment dictate my actions, I was able to get off the path that was making me gain fat and feel bad, both physically and mentally.

As it turned out, my improvement for unhealthy splurging to healthier eating all happened simply because I challenged myself to eat better. As with most people, I don't like to let myself down, so I created a challenge where my only options were to improve my eating or be a failure to myself. My desire to avoid failing and letting myself down was greater than my desire to eat desserts, so I ended up succeeding and improving my eating.

I was concerned about how my decision to stop eating all the junk food would be accepted by my family, but fortunately it turned out better than expected. There were some occasional comments made about me not eating certain desserts, but that was about the extent of it.

However, keeping in mind that I am a personal trainer and my family knows that eating healthy is important to me, I was still made to endure all these temptations. I realize that many people are exposed to even greater pressure to eat unhealthy during the holidays, which makes things that much more difficult.

If you are just starting a healthy nutrition program or have a history of eating poorly during the holidays, your family may expect you to follow your old patterns and may not support your healthier habits. If this happens in the future, whether it is at holiday time or in any other situation, try to remember that you are always in control of what you eat.

You may be pressured to eat things you want to avoid or you may have to eat foods prepared by someone else, but even then, you still control how much you eat. The most important thing is to stick up for yourself and take control of your situation instead of letting your environment dictate your eating habits.

Source:

14 years of experience and education in health and fitness, plus personal experiences