How did it get to be the last week of the year ALREADY?

Amazing how fast time seems to move these days. I still remember when I was a kid when a year was an eternity! Not anymore…

Time moves so slowly for her…

 

If you’re like me, you’re with the family this week between Christmas and New Year’s. You might even be fortunate enough to be off your normal work schedule and you’re hanging with the kids and maybe some grandparents or other visiting relatives. And while this special family time and break from work-work can be a welcome change of pace, there are some unique challenges that present themselves when your schedule changes. Let’s talk about two of them…

First, what do you do when it’s mealtime and you’re not hungry? If you know that in order to lose weight you want to be hungry before you eat (and if you eat when you’re not hungry that you’ll gain weight), then what do you do when it’s time for a meal and you’re not hungry yet? This comes up a lot on breaks because you’re in the midst of other people (your kids, your extended family, your parents) who all will want to eat at times when you aren’t hungry. But the family meals are a time to connect and bond and you don’t want to miss those. So what do you do?

 

Second, what do you do when you’re preparing meals for people with different dietary needs or wants and the foods aren’t what you want to eat on your plan? For example, the kids are having mac and cheese, the grandparents want to order Chinese food, and you thought you’d have some leftover turkey and greens for dinner. You don’t want to be a short-order cook, you’d rather have one main meal (even if you make a quick mac and cheese for the kids). Now what? What do you do when the meals for everyone else are different than what you think is best for your needs?

 

 

Solving both of these pitfalls can be done using the same simple two-step process: Identify the problem, and create a solution. Doing this takes some planning and thinking in advance of the actual pitfall though. The good news is that you have plenty of experience with these challenges and you know what’s happened in the past – you’ve faced these problems in past years and you know what happened before. That means you know what didn’t work.

Here’s what you CAN’T do and succeed: Wait until you’re in the midst of the pitfall and try to figure it out. Your primitive brain will make a quick decision, but it won’t be the one that meets your long-term goals. It will just solve the immediate problem, whatever it is. Your highest-thinking brain will make the best plan, and the only way to access this part of your brain is by planning out your approach in advance of the challenge.

Taking your experience from past years, you get to decide what went wrong before. Were you tempted to eat just because everyone else was eating even though you weren’t hungry? How can you solve that problem? What can you do other than eat so that you can be with the family and enjoy their company but not eat just because they’re eating? Can you sit at the table with a cup of coffee and laugh and talk with them?

 

 

What if they all want to eat and you’d be fine letting them eat while you take a rare break from all the activity? Maybe once you get them settled, you go read that magazine you’ve been dying to read but haven’t had a free moment? How about a short walk outside with the dog who’s been cooped up in the house for weeks because of the rainy cold weather? What if you took the mealtime for a long, hot, luxurious shower because the kiddos and the grand can handle themselves for a few without you?

How about the different meals problem? How can you solve this one? Maybe you sit down with the other adults and make a meal plan for the week so you know how to plan your food accordingly. Maybe your family is like mine and they want you to take the lead, so you get to decide exactly how you want the meals to go. Then you build your meal plan around the bigger family plan. Doesn’t mean you have to make different meals for everyone or that you can’t eat what they’re eating. It just means you get to decide how you’re going to incorporate the family meal plan into yours.

 

One word of caution: Don’t skip the second step, and write down your plan if at all possible. Often we identify the problem, but without finding the solution we leave a vacuum. If there’s no solution, you will fill the space with the default answer (when you did in the past that didn’t work). So if you want to solve the problem and do something different, you MUST create a solution. It might be great or it might be ok, but you’re going to have to try something different if you want different results than in the past. Writing it down slows your brain down enough to help that solution to stick in your brain as an option when you meet the pitfall (instead of staying on autopilot and implementing your default solution).

 

 

You’ve got this! You now have the tools to meet the unique challenges of the Christmas break. Here’s to finishing 2022 strong and on plan!

And if you want to do more of this work with me and finally solve your weight problem for good in 2023, watch out for the January launch of Weight Loss For Black Professionals! It’s your chance to get away from diets that don’t solve your weight problem and get a permanent solution that does. The class will be small and intimate and you don’t want to miss your chance to get a spot. Get on the waitlist under courses at www.drandreachristianparks.com and be the first to know when to sign up!

 

Here’s your video help for the week!