Christmas Wrap-Up 2014, What worked this year vs what didn't work in years past in weight maintenance

Torrey Pines and Del Mar, CA Christmas Day 2014

I had a super relaxing, although still a little busy, Christmas.

Relaxing in that I took a lot of time outdoors with my new camera.

Busy in that the normal holiday activities combined with a young teen and the usual drive around, finish gift wrapping, visit with friends and family always take time. Add in cooking and staying on my food template, sleeping enough, a good kind of busy.

Here's what worked.

1. Planning ahead: first year ever that I had shopped, wrapped, and organized in advance. I will be doing this again.

2. Super simple decorations: 
 Four main items, small, pretty, and I can put them away in less than 10 minutes.

3. Getting enough sleep before and after Christmas.

4. Taking time to visit with friends at a brunch but staying on my food template. No one gave a rat's patootie that I didn't eat.  I ate at home before and brought in-season cut up oranges that were quite awesomely sweet. The kid had plenty to choose from- theme seemed to be cinnamon rolls and breakfast casseroles (all had cheese, so no go for me being dairy free). I have no idea what the kid ate, not my place to be the Paleo or Primal Police. She can make her own decisions. I had plenty of coffee and time to visit. So fun to see everyone. 17 year tradition!!!

5. Two foods that I now moderate on occasion but that do not trigger. One slice of bacon and a small slice of an orange. Pork protein is generally a no go for me and lots of non-berry fruit as well. A lot of both cause me to bloat up or weight re-gain.

Once and awhile on a few, carefully chosen food items don't seem to cause a lapse or awaken the binge brain from its long sleep.  That's how I know they are okay to have now and then. More for their flavor. I could care less about them. I do plan on testing lard out to see if it's more the protein portion of pork or if lard would be okay on occasion. Sometimes I'll cook with lard and the flavor profile is mighty fine in a non-binge brain way.

5. Weighing in daily, except one day this week I totally forgot to hop on the scale. No big deal.  I'm running 115-116 after I healed up from my dental work and early December illness. I feel great! If you are new to my blog you'll know that I'm very short 5'1" so this is a very normal maintenance range for me.

6. Long hikes during my time off and several fit bit challenges. Lucky to have great hiking weather. Totally  made my day on Christmas Eve when I was setting up the second photo of a fast 30 minute photo session and walking window and I saw a whale spout photo bombing in the background. Knocked my socks off!  THEN, I continued to photograph the whale (Moonlight Beach, Encinitas, CA) and found some cormorants photo bombing the whale. Later, I learned via Instagram from a surfer that the whale  had earlier swam right through the surfing line up at Beacon's (a beach to the North)  Sweet! 

Christmas Day Hike- 22,000 steps that day.(first photo on this page) Torrey Pines. So clear you could see the smoke stack in Carlsbad. YEAH! Thousands of people hiking in Torrey Pines. I've never seen it so crowed. Happy that entire families chose to get outside and hike up a 0.75 mile hill. 

What didn't work in the past.

1. Wrapping gifts and shopping at the last minute. Less sleep and more binge urges.
2. Decorating the way my family used to and not adopting a simpler style. Especially after my move from a bigger home to a small town home. Very stressful.
3. Not getting enough sleep. I was always sick around the holidays. I can now see my decisions of both food and lack of sleep played a huge part in that.
4. Attending events with the intent to binge eat, prep food that I legalized so I could binge, and in turn did not feel great visiting with people. Too busy side-eying the frosting on the cinnamon rolls... could I snag some without anyone noticing... ?? Ugh. Stomach hurts just thinking about it...
5. Avoiding the scale and false promises to "cut back" "be good" "go to WW" in January. After binge season was over. Using bulky sweaters to "hide" my body rolls. I'm telling you, that sweater trick did not work. But my binge brain loved that strategy.
6. I hiked, but not very far. And, as a sugar burner, I would fuel even a short hike with carbs, Cliff bars, low fat cookies, M&M laden trail mix, or some processed WW snack if I were truly into counting points.  Now as a fat burner, I'm lucky if I'm even hungry. I do find that I'll need something, within an hour of finishing 5-6 consecutive miles, but I can usually wait to get home 30 mins to 1 hour. No big deal as a fat burner.

That's the scoop. A lot of thoughts came out of my head on the Torrey Pines hike. About how I kept myself stuck, by my own choices for so many years. I remain convinced that the best tool for weight loss and weight maintenance is a good sense of self and the ability to change up more quickly and pull away from the heard and lemming mentality. Especially when I could clearly see it wasn't working. The mind clarity and the Paleo food template are very clear top tools.  The decisions to stay stuck were my own choices. Oh, but my binge brain loved it.

Ownership is awesome. Self efficacy, hard work, but clarity and clear choices are very much worth it and become easier each year.

And, the cat photo for our friend, Katie! The cats had an especially good day playing with the gift wrapping and trying to destroy the minimal Christmas decorations. Lots of laughing on our part.

Tortoiseshell Cat in a Tube