It’s that time of year. The holidays. Family. Food. Fun! Believe it or not, I have been able to lose weight during the holiday season. True story. Ask my mama because she did it too. Now, it wasn’t easy, but it was doable.

See, Thanksgiving is one day. ONE. It’s not a 3 day long gorge fest. It is one day. Last year, my husband and I decided to stay at home, order food from a local restaurant and ate on it for 3 days. Yes he’s a chef, but he begged for a break. Fine by me. When he made his plate, I wanted to take a picture of the very first-by-ourselves Thanksgiving plate. He said no because he didn’t want to look back and see what a pig he was. Seriously, the man had enough food to feed an army. I found myself heating something up when he did because it smelled good. Shoot, I didn’t even get dressed that day. I ate. I slept and kept plenty of antacid in stock. I was in a 3 day food comatose. Looking back at it, it was the beginning of a 5-10 lb weight gain that I’ve just now almost gotten rid of. No joke.

This year, we’re going to my mother’s house. I won’t have tons of food in my house that I feel the need to eat. I’ll get up early and go on a long walk to burn some kind of calories. Truthfully, I’ve got to warm up for the annual “I Got The Last of Mom’s Sweet Potato Souffle Topping” battle that I have with my brother. Another story for another day. When Thursday is over, it’s back to eating as clean as I possibly can and getting in whatever exercise possible.

During this time of year, you don’t have to eat every time somebody offers you something. Not sure why we can’t say “no thank you” or just eat a little here and there. I guess it’s a southern thing and we don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings y’all. I know people bake things and bring you so much stuff from Thanksgiving until Christmas, but you don’t have to eat it all. Share it with people. At my job, you can empty out your cabinets, put it all in the break room and everything will be gone by noon. I mean people there eat anything. For me, it’s not easy to walk through there during this time of year. Sometimes I walk around it. Most of the time, I have to go through there. Sure, I’ll grab a small something from time to time, but this year I am going to try hard to avoid things. I tell myself that people don’t wash their hands. Truthfully some don’t. It’s not the first or last holiday where food will be available. That’s what I keep telling myself.

The point is this – if you have no plan, you have no guidelines. You’ll just eat whatever. At least with a plan there are some guidelines to follow and you won’t spend the next year trying to lose it. You don’t have to tell people “I’m trying to be good”. Simply smile, thank them and go on about your business. It’s time to learn to eat to live and not live to eat…y’all.