Is it appropriate to go on a diet during the Christmas Holidays

misshoneyz2dab

I've been told by a lot of people, that I should avoid going on diets during the Christmas period. Should I still lose weight in December?

Alatariel75

Christmas is one day, not a whole season. If you put off putting your health first until January, it's just longer until you get where you want to be. There will always be things coming up, Birthdays, holidays, Easter, Christmas, Valentines etc - how you prioritise them is up to you.

dragon_girl26

Three years ago, I started my diet a week before Thanksgiving. I still enjoyed the meal, but I worked out and watched my calories aside from that. I actually lost almost 30 lbs by my birthday in early February that year, and still haven't gained it back to this day. So I'm living proof that it can be done. I wanted the weight off more than I wanted all of the food..that was all I needed.
ETA: actually, it's a great time to be at the gym, too. My gym is usually pretty bare this time of year. You can get in and see what you like to do before the January insanity hits.

BabyLovesToRun

The real question is what do you want the most? Do you want the food that has put you in your current "I need to go on a diet" mode or do you want the body you're dreaming of? I'll allow myself to indulge on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, but the rest of them are going to be spent putting in the work!!

Ready2Rock206

There's always an excuse to not try and lose weight at any given time. You can spend the entire year coming up with excuses or you can just go ahead and do it.

Helloitsdan

If you're working consistently towards your goal, eating in excess a couple days a year won't hurt your progress.

If you need help, send a friend request.

brentfostwood904

I pretty much eat meat, vegetables and gravy for my normal diet anyway lol. Christmas dinner seems healthy to me?! Or if not I dont think it would need much modification to make it a healthy meal. Like just have a few more vegetables on your plate and a bit less meat, things like that, so you can still eat the same food but still be healthy..

TR0berts

I'm going to continue my cut through the holiday season. I know that a couple of days I'll be over and my weight will either maintain or go up slightly. But, because I'm planning on keeping on my cut, I won't have to worry too much about my weight possibly getting out of control or falling into old habits.

PaulaWallaDingDong

Save your splurging for the actual celebration days, and stick to the plan on all other days. Don't go whole hog and start backsliding if you don't have to, but don't sacrifice having a fun, delicious time with friends and family either.

Ready2Rock206 wrote: »

There's always an excuse to not try and lose weight at any given time. You can spend the entire year coming up with excuses or you can just go ahead and do it.

Also this. ^^^

Lounmoun

It isn't impossible to watch your calorie intake over the holidays. Eat at maintenance level on the actual holiday. Stick to your goal the other days of the month.
Today is November 20th. Set a reasonable sustainable goal like 1 lb a week and start logging today.
If you plan to go on a very restrictive low calorie diet I'd say you will not have a very happy holidays and will probably not end up being succesful at sticking to it.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10479934/is-it-really-just-one-day/p1

Sabine_Stroehm

Go on a diet when you're ready. Christmas is one day. Good luck.

canadjineh

I started my diet at the end of a November and went right through til my goal weight in the following early March. It can be done, but it is your decision alone. Go forth and own it! If you decide not to start until after the holidays, don't make that an excuse to do all the crap crazy eating 'to get it out of your system', just be normal. You'll be happier for it.

MarziPanda95

I made the mistake last year of telling myself 'it's Christmas, I can treat myself'... throughout the WHOLE of December! I gained almost ten pounds and have been yo-yoing those same pounds up and down for the last year. So this year, I'll enjoy myself in maintenance on days when events with friends are happening (parties, nights out, celebrations for the end of the university semester) but eat in deficit the rest of the time. The only exceptions will be Christmas Eve, Christmas day, and Boxing day, when I'll go all out. New Year's eve will probably be maintenance again.

85Cardinals

Let's face it, even Santa could afford to lose a few pounds.

jemhh

I will go against the grain and say that if I was completely new to dieting I would not start over the holidays. I would make it my goal to maintain and start making better food choices in preparation for smart calorie cutting after the holidays. By next year's holidays your new healthy habits will be second nature and it may be less stressful to cut over the holidays.

That's just what I'd do and did before start my weight loss project in 2014.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

spiriteagle99

I've actually started dieting several times during the holidays. For many people, the period of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years becomes a time of non-stop indulgence. Rather than gain 5 or more pounds during those two months, by paying attention to what I eat, I can lose a few pounds, or at the least maintain my weight. Even if it's just a matter of being careful 6 days a week and indulging on one, that's better than indulging 7 days a week.

Bearbo27

Alatariel75 wrote: »

Christmas is one day, not a whole season. If you put off putting your health first until January, it's just longer until you get where you want to be. There will always be things coming up, Birthdays, holidays, Easter, Christmas, Valentines etc - how you prioritise them is up to you.

^^^ This, one thing I used to do really bad was make the excuse "I'll start after this birthday" "after this anniversary" "maybe I'll get my butt in gear after our vacation". Once I reached 120 lbs over a healthy weight, I finally realized that I cannot make that excuse any longer. Another point I'd like to make is that it should never be thought of as just some diet. Making healthy choices and eating smaller portions is a lifestyle change. With that being said...I began my new way of eating July 2nd. Since then I've been through birthday parties for both of my daughters, camping trips, trips to the lake, family gatherings, and Halloween. Each event has been treated the same and that is with me logging what I eat. It works, I am down 52.9 lbs as of this morning. Major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas I may allow myself took up to maintenance for that one day. That is the key though, one day! You cannot treat the holidays like a free for all with food. Allow yourself to eat goodies, but make it fit in your calories.

ninerbuff

OP I don't know who you converse with, but 3 days of Holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's) are usually days of over indulgence, but you can be consistent and in calorie deficit the rest of the time and still lose. I wrote a thread on this.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10479697/that-extra-2-5lbs-gain-each-year#latest

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

haviegirl

I started using MFP on December 21st last year. Lost 35 pounds, and am at maintenance now. So holidays, shmolidays.

Verity1111

Why do you need someone else's approval for when it's okay for you to eat healthier or lose weight?

jolive7

Maybe have Christmas day off, but not the whole holiday period. I am going to have a day off tracking for Christmas but the rest of December will be tracked

timeforwork

How about not changeling your eating habits but starting to log everything. Seeing how much you eat on a daily basis can be a shock and having to see the numbers on a screen may encourage you to not eat as much even if you haven't started trying to lose yet.

Red_Dwarf74

misshoneyz2dab wrote: »

I've been told by a lot of people, that I should avoid going on diets during the Christmas period. Should I still lose weight in December?

I would log everything and stick to your plan to lose weight, take only Christmas day off.

TavistockToad

misshoneyz2dab wrote: »

I've been told by a lot of people, that I should avoid going on diets during the Christmas period. Should I still lose weight in December?

Do what you want to do, not what 'people' say...

PhilHarrison1

So ballpark your numbers if you want to lose weight. Don't do daily. Do by the week. For example. This is Thanksgiving week. if you know you need 2000 calories a day to lose a pound, decide if you want that pound or can live with a half a pound and adjust the calories for that week to that number. For that pound at 2000 calories a day, that's 14000 calories for the week. Somehow I don't think you are going to eat 14000 calories on Thanksgiving day or Christmas. So from Thanksgiving Day to the next Thursday, adjust your calories so you still only get 14000 calories for that week. You will still lose a pound. Doing both, dropping to say 1/2 pound weight loss for that week and adjusting your daily calories to a weekly ball park, makes the holidays much easier and you won't feel deprived plus you won't feel totally guilty when you have that second piece of pie made with a butter pie crust or that extremely rich mac and cheese with 4 different types of cheese. And since you adjusted your goal to 1/2 a pound, you still have the success of losing weight that week. And if you want to nibble for the weeks in between, keep it on that 1/2 pound loss. A half a pound is still LOSS. And it's okay. You don't get any brownie points for losing it faster and being a martyr in the holidays if it makes you unhappy or ruins your loss. What counts is you keep on trucking toward your goal. Sometimes fast and sometimes slow.

My sin this week was a local ice cream place's quart of ice cream which has extra butter fat. They were selling out for the season. I got a quart which lasted me 3 days. And it's okay. I will adjust my calories for the week after my last bite. Usually I eat down the days before but this was unexpected and sure enough once I took that first bite, I was doomed. I could have chosen to have hysteria and throw my diet to the wind because OMG look what I ate. Instead this morning, I woke up, adjusted the calories and went trucking on. At the end of the week, I will still have a loss.

Ain't no reason not to go on a diet since you can still have a holiday.

Gerbsxyng412

Just keep eating healthy but enjoy yourself on Christmas, do what you want to do, don't listen to others! If you are wanting to lose weight then go for it!

Machka9

In 2012, my husband and I travelled the world for months ... and gained weight from eating all the good food out there. We arrived in the area of Canada where most of my family are a couple weeks before Christmas, with the plan to stay there about a month. The next day we went to a local community gym and got a 1-month membership.

During that month, including Christmas of course, we both lost weight.

We were working out at the gym a couple hours just about every day ... plus going for bicycle rides for an hour or two on nicer days ... and eating a reasonable amount. We weren't depriving ourselves, you can bet I still had my grandmother's shortbread! But we weren't going crazy.


Since then, I've had about a week off over Christmas, plus it is summer (finally), so I usually ramp up my exercise through December, and then put in a lot of effort during my time off at Christmas, and I've lost weight each year. Last year, I hit my lowest weight in a long time about the day before Christmas.


So sure ... nothing wrong with making an effort to lose weight over Christmas.

iofred

I assume with a "diet" you mean calorie count? Using MFP and sticking to the calorie count "should be" a style of life rather than a diet, so using this you should not need to go on a diet, but you might include a couple of "Cheat days"

lauracups

I haven't been on a "diet" the entire time it took me to lose 60lbs. And I'll continue to not be on a diet over the holidays, instead I'll make a conscious decision to not eat All the cookies, or 2nds of the sweet potatoes, or drink til I'm sick or have foods that'll upset my stomach. And I'll decide to exercise every day to feel energized.
It's not about deprivation, it's about choices.

Machka9

iofred wrote: »

Using MFP and sticking to the calorie count "should be" a style of life

Not necessarily.