My approach to holiday weight gain... (now that I dont starve, diet, obsess, overthink, overtrain, stress out or believe its my duty as a woman or a fitness professional to do anything other than honor my bod, my soul, my spirit and my tribe).... Whatevs. It happens. It happened last year, the year before that and the year before that. And it always went away on its own, because its normal. Thats right: normal. For just a very small period of time I eat a little more and move a little less: life kinda makes that more likely and possible during the holidays. I choose to go with the flow. Maybe I gain 5lbs (maybe more but its likely bloat, poop and water. Not real weight). Moving more and getting back to my normal eating habits - without going nuts or extreme - means losing any gain by the end of January. Or later. Either way, not a big deal. Its not my job to stay the same size all the time. Its not your job to stay the same size all the time. Thats why we buy leggings. #teamnopants It IS my job to honor my body, make sure its working, try not to bust it up too badly, let it heal and keep my stress down because that shizz is POISON. If I stick to doing what makes me feel good, I might gain a little weight but NOTHING unmanageable or wardrobe changing. Id have to completely fly off the handle to gain a significant amount of real weight, which is something I only experienced when I lived in an extreme mindset (both sides of it. All or nothing). Taking extreme measures to combat weight gain (starving, using too much mental energy to focus on weight loss, overtraining and stress) makes weight gain really easy and puts your body through hell. It will respond by saving you from yourself, likely in the form of over-eating, decreased energy, burn out, injury, illness, fat hoarding (your body LOVES the stuff and will fight to keep it if youre being an asshole), hormone overloads and metabolism messery. Plus, youll be grumpy and not fun to deal with. Youll notice other people arent as fun to deal with either and sometimes we need to deal with tough people during the holidays. Using too much energy on weight loss measures or body perfecting during the holidays leaves little left to deal with hard to handle people. It sucks. Think of it this way:bodies have seasons and are allowed to change with them. Life happens. Its supposed to. Small amounts of weight gain arent a big deal unless you let them be. There is no wagon: do whatcha can, dont kamikaze yourself, have fun and when youre ready BAM. Back to your normal routine. I wont be spending any time thinking about my weight this holiday season. I will be thinking positively about food (eating it), feeling good (living it), having fun (PLAYTIME!), cuddles and doing booty shaking yoga because it makes me really, REALLY happy. #butisattva FOR CLARITY purposes, lets contrast this to how holidays worked when I DID starve, diet, obsess, overtrain, overthink, stress and believed that it was my duty as a woman/fitness professional to attain or maintain a certain aesthetic and constantly be working on being perfect.... 1. I had two modes: hungry or stuffed. Id starve all day in anticipation of a crazy night of food and stuff myself all night. Neither was very fun. 2. I was stressed all the time. And tired. All the energy that should have gone into having a nice time went into body stuff. No fun. For anyone. Trying to squeeze in my hour long workouts twice daily when those hours were LITERALLY stolen from my commitments and sleep was brutal. Nowadays if I can manage 10 minutes I get a high five. 3. I trained too hard and exhausted my soul supply. The resulting burn out usually lasted all through January and sometimes Feb. Or longer. If you have periods of time where you train CRAZY hard then seem to have a few weeks/months of low energy, think about this.Burn out isnt just physical, its mental too. 4. A gain of 15-20lbs was normal. Which only fueled my desire to go back to extremes to get the weight off and reinforced all my feelings of failure. So after months of stressing and trying to prevent feeling like a failure, I created the thing I was most fearful of. Another thought to chew on (take a walk down memory lane). 5. I was grumpy. You wouldnt like me when Im grumpy. 6. I cant really remember much of what happened. I remember feeling fat, but not the games we played, what was said or the presents I got. I remember untagging pics, but not what the pics were of. I remember working on my skinny pic face more than the cards or gifts I gave. Just saying... If any of this resonates with you, remember you have a choice on what kind of holiday season to have AND the choice to let your weight loss goals take a back seat to your soul for a bit. Honor your bod, enjoy the food, move because its freaking fun and makes you feel good and when the dust settles, get back to your normal routine. Theres no happier holiday than one where you are present, focused on enjoying yourself and feeling GOOOD. There is nothing more urgent than enjoying your life and enjoying the body youre currently in. Stay healthy, stay happy, but make sure your priorities are in line with a happy, FULL life and not just a smaller bod. :) #imbackbaby #bringonthestuffing
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 21:51:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015