The only time I miss snow is at Christmas time. So I fly to Chicago for five days and get that out of my system. Don’t get me wrong, I love the family stuff too but cold weather and I have a very strained relationship.
What I don’t miss is the social anxiety around food and sweets.
The mental gymnastics, heck it’s more like mental extreme sports.
Here’s just some of the thoughts and ideas that ran through my head during this time of year.
- “Damn, where did that Christmas basket come from I love those little chocolate things”
- “I wish Aunt Barbara’s house didn’t smell like one big cookie”
- “Rum cake, what the hell is that anyway? Is there booze in it?”
- “Why are all stocking stuffers for the kids freaking candy?”
- “Candy canes? Don’t lie you’ve sucked on them too.”
- “How can I survive one more Christmas party? It seems I gain a pound a party.”
- “It’s everywhere I turn. The office, everyone else’s office, every store has a candy dish out and every house I visit.”
- “It’s almost unconscious, habit maybe. I have to test and try a little of every variation of candy, cookie and baked good.”
- “Seriously, worrying about getting drunk at all the parties was worse than this.”
The holidays are especially brutal – mentally.
We want to “be good.” I could do an entire post on the concept of “being good” in relation to eating sugar. My mother always wanted to “be good” about her sugar intake.
But we do, we want to “be good.”
It’s like we want to be a little mischievous but not quite “bad.”
As in, “I was bad last night.” I ended up eating half the cookies I baked for the kids bake sale.
Mischievous, childlike, would have been only one or two.
Then we would have deemed ourselves “Good.”
It’s exhausting.
Exhausting because, I don’t know about you, but I could NEVER tell is I was going to be good or bad before it all started.
Seriously.
I never knew if one was going to lead to thirty or three.
What the hell is that?
If I said I was going to only eat half the huge portion the restaurant brought out and save the rest for lunch – nine out of ten or 99 out of 100 times that’s exactly what would happen. But sugar? I had no way to tell. Zero.
It’s that anxiety, that inability to control the outcome that made me quit.
Way before weight and way before health issues.
You just want to trust yourself again.
To keep your promises to yourself.
What I learned was I was fighting a biochemical reaction in my body and my body was stronger than my mind, at that time.
I wasn’t “bad.”
You’re not bad.
You’re human.
If you’re like me and millions of other humans sometimes our susceptibility to sugar in your body may trump your mind’s ability to say no to the next bite…
If you’re ready to at least be open to learning more, and joining a growing army of folks just like you, to make the holidays mentally peaceful and serene again then just click here. Peaceful Holiday Plan.
This is an exciting time of year if you let it be. When we are peaceful and rested during the holidays we can prepare for our best year ever!
Seriously, never send one of those gift baskets with all the samples in them. Even as a business thing, it’s even worse to have them sitting around the office. Make your holidays serene and your New Year the best. Join Us.
