Holidays coming up!

@Fall4Daph, I mostly control myself but I will indulge in my most absolute favorites in a portion controlled way that sometimes fits into my calorie budget. I need to eat gluten free so that removes quite a bit of festive options but I still manage to find stuff I enjoy that I can eat occasionally, like once a week or a special event. It also helps that I hate baking so I’m not over here creating yummy treats to eat all day. Around here in the desert most ppls activity levels increase with the cooler weather, so that can help offset seasonal treats. I tend to gain in the summer when it’s sooo hot I become housebound. But another good way to make room for goodies, exercise more 😉 not so good for longterm health though as you can’t out exercise an unhealthy diet. But may help increase your calorie budget during the holidays 👍.

One thing is to remind myself that it's holiDAYS not holiMONTHS.

Yeah, there's a season, and there's food everywhere. I do want to celebrate, and do want to enjoy some of the really special treats of the season, but I especially don't need to be eating every grocery store cookie or pretty uninspiring candy or whatever, just because it's there. I want to be selective, and enjoy the truly special and more delicious things. Wallowing in everything on offer indiscriminately is going to be counterproductive, and honestly not that enjoyable taste-wise.

Also, part of my routine (as an on-water rower) is to participate most years in a rowing machine holiday challenge to row 200k between US Thanksgiving (4th Thursday in November) and Christmas Eve. For me, the way I schedule it, that's about 40 minutes of rowing x 6 days a week, which is a decent calorie-burner, and creates a little wiggle room for treats.

I've been at this for a while, so I know some especially calorie-efficient but nutrient dense things I can eat on the day of a special foodie event, so that I arrive at the event reasonably sated, and with some calories still available in my budget. If it's a really big deal, I might cut my routine calorie budget for a few days in advance of the event, too - not by much, something manageable like 100 calories daily. That allows more celebration/indulgence on the special day.

(I don't like making up for treats after the event: For me, that can set up a restrict/overeat cycle. But if I do the small reduction in advance, the special occasion stands in for the less-responsible overeating that would perhaps follow a cut to compensate after the event.)

I'm in maintenance now, but when I was losing, I was also doing the math based on my personalized calorie estimates (calculated from my own logging and losses). I knew that if I'd been losing a pound a week (say), I had been averaging a 500 calorie daily deficit. I could then make rational decisions, like whether eating at maintenance calories (goal + 500) on average over 3 days - so a 3 day delay in reaching goal weight - was worth it, or not.

The same mathematical thinking applies to over-goal eating during loss, too: If I'm losing a pound a week at goal calories, and I eat roughly 1000 calories over goal one day, I've delayed reaching goal weight by 2 days. Sometimes I see people freaking out because they ate 250 over goal (when losing a pound a week) because they think they've ruined everything, when all they've done is delay reaching goal weight by around 12 hours. To me, if it was a good treat, that could be worth it.

If something really special, even a few days delay could be worth it. It's a choice, and I need to take responsibility for my choices, i.e., make them conscious choices, not out of control randomness.

In maintenance, I can still think in terms of the most I could gain from a calorie excess, and consider whether it's worth maybe having to go back into weight loss mode for a while after the holidays. By now, I know how to lose a pound (roughly 3500 calories) or two (7000 calories) if I need to. That's a choice, too. (Usually, gain is a little less than the theoretical amount from the extra calories. There's some science behind that that I won't belabor . . . and I don't rely on that knowledge, either.)

I'm also deeply familiar with the experience of unusual eating increasing water retention way more pounds than could possibly be caused by the extra calories I've eaten, and I don't worry about it. I'm in menopause (no monthly hormonal weirdness), so I'm very confident that as long as I go back to my normal healthy maintenance routine, that water retention (false gain) will drop off the scale in a week or two. (It'll still happen for women with cycles, it just could take a little longer.)

Travel by car or air over the holidays tends to increase water retention even more, besides. I'm 100% not catastrophizing if I'm up a few pounds immediately after feast/travel days. I'm going to wait it out for at least of a couple of weeks (at normal routine) before deciding that some kind of intervention is needed to creep down a little fat gain.

I usually do creep up a few pounds in Winter, more from some extra appetite as days shorten and weather gets cold, plus moving less in Winter because indoors more. (It's gets quite cold and snowy here - less garden/yard work and incidental outdoor movement.) Generally, as things perk up in Spring, I move more and can reverse some of that without huge effort.

I'm a lot calmer about all of this than I was at first . . . too calm, sometimes, maybe.

You can make this work. The right tactics will be personal and individual, but other people can give ideas to try. If some tactic you adopt doesn't work, try something else next time. Weight management is a long game.