How To Get Back On Track With Healthy Eating Habits After The Holidays

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How to get back on track with healthy eating habits after the holidays depends on how serious you are about getting back into a routine. It’s difficult to stop all the treats and get back to clean eating. If you are like me, you might be feeling the bloat and now you’re on a mission to get back on track after indulging over the holidays.

It’s no secret to anyone that knows me that I love the month of January because it’s a time that I feel extra motivated to make changes. This is the best time to work on your aspirations. 

This blog is all about health and wellness, as I have shared my own weight loss journey from 2 years ago in previous posts. So, I want to be completely transparent (again). Since October of 2019, I have gained 15 pounds. Yikes!

I’m fully committed to getting back on track with my healthy eating habits now that the holidays are behind us. More importantly, I have my sights set on getting back to my goal weight and feeling good in my own skin. 

If you have overindulged during the holidays, and have a history of yo-yo dieting like I do, I hope me sharing my journey will help you get back on track with your own healthy eating habits. 

I have broken down my strategy into these 6 steps:

1. Have Compassion For Yourself

You might find yourself feeling sluggish, tired and like you are stuffed in your clothes right now. I know it doesn’t feel great, but it’s ok, you won’t feel this way for long. The first step that you can do that will serve you well so you can start moving in the right direction with your healthy eating goals is to just forgive yourself.

You enjoyed the holiday dinners and desserts and indulged in all the leftover goodies. It was all delicious and no doubt you enjoyed it. I sure did, and I have no regrets.

Don’t agonize over it now. What’s done is done. It happens to most people. Congratulations, you are human. 

Now it’s time to move on. It really is that simple. 

Having compassion is like giving yourself the green light to do something good for you. Be extra careful not to think of incorporating healthy habits as punishment. 

Do you want to know if you are practicing compassion for yourself? There is no guilt, and you have a feeling of acceptance about where you are right now. You’ll also feel excited about what’s ahead because you know this state you are in is only temporary. 

Anything other than these feelings I just mentioned will just feel like guilt and shame. Those are negative emotions and negative emotions will only make incorporating healthy eating habits feel forced. You won’t last one week on your journey like this, trust me.

2. Start Small

Okay, now that the first step is out of the way, we can start on the second step, which is the actual plan to get back on track with healthy eating habits. 

If you know anything about me, you know back in 2017 I tackled the weight loss journey of my life and went on to lose 100 pounds.

I believe my success came from creating mini habits that were easy to incorporate. When I say mini habits I mean really small changes. The idea here is to avoid overwhelm. Once those mini habits became second nature I could build on that success and add a few more.

An example of some mini habits to add to your week would be things like: 

• Deciding that all your beverages will be zero calories
• Bringing your lunch and a healthy snack every day 
• Adding a vegetable to two of your meals every day
• Having to a piece of fruit after dinner instead of having a sugary dessert

You can choose any small change that suits you. Just make sure what you choose to do doesn’t make you too uncomfortable because it will be just as easy not to do it. This is a strategy I learned from reading The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. 

The Compound Effect is about taking small consistent actions that eventually add up to big results. Making these small changes over time become so ingrained that you won’t even have to think about what you are actually doing, and helped me gain momentum. Once you gain momentum, it’s like your on cruise control. 

You still have to be mindful of healthy eating choices but you don’t have to think so hard. With this strategy, good decisions about what to eat are easy, and there’s no decision fatigue. For example, you become that person who doesn’t have to decide whether to have chips on the side of your sandwich. 

You just don’t choose to have chips because it doesn’t enter your mind. I remember being so conditioned to choose healthy options that I could be around chips or sweet treats and not even feel drawn to them. No willpower needed. Really. It was like looking at a chair or a shoe. 

Before I knew the power of mini habits, I would struggle to try to get back on track with healthy eating after indulging during the holidays. When it comes to healthy eating habits, the phrase progress not perfection is so important to remember. 

The awesome thing about creating mini habits is that you’re making your strategy almost fail-proof. One reason is that following through with the smallest healthy eating habit makes you believe you actually can get back on track with healthy eating. You build confidence in yourself with each day that you stay consistent and it ignites your motivation to keep going.  

Why create mini habits? The whole premise around mini habits is to crowd out bad habits. For one thing, your mind cannot focus on eating healthy and eating like crap at the same time. Even though your brain wants to do what’s familiar, creating mini habits appeals to your desire to do what feels easy. 

People also innately like to be rewarded for the effort they put out because change is hard. So following through with new mini habits and seeing good results makes you feel good about yourself. You can make it fun by giving yourself an incentive to follow through. 

For example, let’s say for the next thirty days you decided to stop buying the $4.50 latte on your afternoon break at work. You would have saved yourself $135.00 which can be used to get your hair done. Get creative about what will keep you motivated to stick to your guns. 

3. Get Support

The third step to help get back on track with healthy habits is to enlist the help of a friend. It’s not mandatory because you can still have success going solo.  However, having a supportive friend or family member who is doing the same thing helps you feel less isolated. 

I didn’t do this two years ago but still reached my goal. My daughter is starting her own healthy habits journey, so it’s going to be nice that we’ll be supporting each other.

4. Track Your Progress

Having a way to track your progress is a great tool for getting back on track with healthy eating habits. This fourth step gives you a shot of motivation and inspiration at just the right time. It’s easier to make improvements when you keep track of all that you are doing.

Before and after photos is a favorite way a lot of people track their progress. I had before, during and after photos, and kept a food diary 2 years ago. This time I’m tracking food and exercise. A simple journal would do the trick. If you can add a before photo when you start all the better.

While it isn’t my favorite way to track my progress, using the scale to track your progress can be helpful especially if you have a lot of weight to lose as I did two years ago. I suggest weighing once every week but not more than that. You don’t want to become obsessed with the scale.

It may help to try and remember the number on the scale is just a snapshot of what’s happening with your weight at that moment. A person’s body weight can fluctuate as much as 5lbs in a day depending on your fluid status, women especially.

Another way to track your progress is to pay attention to how your clothes fit. I can tell if I’ve gained a few pounds by how comfortably my clothes fit. This will be the benchmark I use to gauge how well I’m doing overtime.

5. Get Moving

The fifth step is to incorporate is movement. You don’t have to add exercise if you aren’t ready for it. I encourage you to check in with your healthcare provider before you start any exercise program if you have any nagging injuries or if it’s been a while since you have exercised

If you get the all-clear from your healthcare provider, please start slow and gentle with exercise. 

Exercise is great for managing stress so adding it to help you get back on track with healthy eating habits is a plus. All that’s needed is more movement. Walking when you can instead of driving, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator – it all counts.

Over the years, I have curated a collection of fitness DVDs ranging from beginner to advanced. I absolutely love Leslie Sansone’s videos for beginning an exercise routine. I find her indoor walking videos to be challenging yet easy to do. 

As my fitness level progresses, I can add more intermediate level exercises. However, right now it’s important for me to begin by starting out slow and gentle without causing injury. I’m choosing to do a mixture of indoor walking videos and beginner yoga videos 3 days a week for 20 minutes. 

6. Get Adequate Sleep

Until eight months ago, I worked overnight in the ICU so I understand the importance of this sixth step which cannot be overstated. In May of 2019, I accepted a new position as a PACU nurse (Post Anesthesia Care Unit). I didn’t realize until I left the ICU how much getting adequate sleep contributes to how well I function every day. 

You’ll have to trust me on this one. Restful sleep is restorative and every system in your body is affected when you lack adequate sleep on a regular basis. I’ll just leave it at that. 

Summary 

Let’s recap. If you are recommitted to get back on track with healthy habits after indulging over the holidays, practicing compassion by forgiving yourself is the key to starting off on the right foot. 

Start small by creating mini habits to make your plan fail-proof. If you know you won’t fail, you’ll dive right in and keep going without hesitation.

Get support from a friend or a family member. You’ll feel less isolated and it will feel good to encourage someone else going through their journey. 

When you track your progress, it’s easier to improve upon what gets measured. Tracking your healthy habits and activity gives you information that will tell you exactly where you may need to make tweaks and changes to your plan along the way.

Exercise is like the cherry on top of this strategy. It enhances all the other healthy habits you incorporate. Get moving as soon as you are able, but don’t forget to start out slow and gentle. Then progress when the exercise you choose starts getting easy.

And finally, If you want to get back on track with healthy eating habits, getting adequate sleep is your foundation for success. It will help you take action in all the other steps. Get started on these six steps and before you know it your mini healthy habits will feel like the routine you have always had. 

The most important thing here is to keep your plan as simple as possible, and fun. I can guarantee you’ll see the results from all of your efforts. 

Do you have a strategy to get back on track with healthy eating habits this year? 

Let me know in the comments!

Soure:

https://simple-nourished-living.com/7-strategies-back-track-after-holidays/

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