Hardly anyone can escape the perils of the holiday season and this year I was accosted. I am a fitness person that eats decently, and yet the two weeks leading up to Christmas I was bombarded with treats. It was round after round of See's Candies, home made Italian cookies, chocolate covered cherries and assorted Christmas cookies. Then there was rum cake (still warm after coming out of the oven), peppermint bark, truffles, biscotti, and of course, home made tamales.
It seems that nearly every person that wanted to show me appreciation or kindness this year did so with food. I tried nearly a little of everything, and can confidently report to you that I made myself completely sick. I happened to spend an hour on the treadmill the other day only to later have two of the above mentioned truffles. I took to reading the truffle's nutrition label and noticed that only two of those truffles completely negated my hour on the treadmill. Just two truffles and Poof! The entire hour on the treadmill was gone! Yes, they were smooth as silk, ridiculously delicious and almost did not seem like real food as they had a texture and taste from out of this world.
The sugar influx this year was so tremendous, that it literally became some sort of an exposure therapy experiment for me. I have heard of harsh exposure therapy treatments where smokers are cured of their desire for smoking when they are forced by a therapist to keep lighting up one after the other until they have been completely emptied of their desire. This is exactly how it was for me this Christmas season. I have completely lost all desire for sweets, chocolate and anything that may fall in the dessert family. I can't see myself eating another such item any earlier than March of 2014. I do not believe in making New Year's Resolutions when it comes to health, eating or exercise, but I can assure you that anything I do moving forward could only be a vast improvement from what I did to myself the past two weeks. Can you relate?
What has also been highlighted to me through this unforeseen experiment is just how easy it all goes in, and how difficult it is to reign one's self in, and to burn off those extra calories. I even found myself turning into a "light switch thinker" when I started believing that my eating had been so bad/off that I might as well just continue to make it all bad. Keep in mind, I am an avid exerciser and at least have that going for me. What about those that don't? I guess for such people this just translates to 10 lbs of seasonal weight gain that may never, ever come off.
At this moment, I feel grateful for having well established eating and exercise habits. I have renewed gratitude for how good healthy habits makes me feel. The two weeks of eating terribly were punishing, and resulted in a garbage like output of weak energy. This has brought me full circle to remember why I make good choices most of the time and embrace a healthy lifestyle. Feeling good is solid motivation for continuing to make the effort.
