Picture this:
You’re on the train to Turkey Town….
Christmas and Thanksgiving are right around the corner–
Then you remember that you still want to lose weight, get leaner, and not gorge yourself like total slob.
So then what should you do?
Should you enjoy yourself and have slabs of pumpkin pie?
Or should you show up with a Tupperware of boiled chicken and broccoli?
Let me help by highlighting the three biggest mistakes I see guys make with their diets over the holiday season.
MISTAKE #1: LETTING IT BLEED
You wake up on Boxing day.
Bloated.
Hungover.
Feeling like a bag of dicks.
‘Bailey’s and coffee?’, asks your wife/mom/cousin/sibling.
That turns into leftover cookies.
The next day you’ve fallen back into the ‘fuck-it’ diet again because you’ve brought a bunch of leftovers home with you.
Besides, the past week has been an eggnog-fueled shitshow anyways – might as well keep going, right?
You can avoid this.
Get home and get back to eating in a way you want to be eating.
Throw away, gift, or freeze any foods you don’t want to keep accessible.
If the food is available, it will get eaten.
Go shopping and restock the house with all the foods you need.
You don’t need to let it become a month-long ordeal
At the end of the day, losing weight and getting in shape is something that is supposed to add to your life, not take away from it.
In almost all cases, that means allowing yourself to be flexible with your approach if you want to live like a normal person.
MISTAKE #2: BEING TOO STRICT
Seriously, your macros can wait.
If you’re 275 lb and you need to drop another 50-75 of those, the odds are good you won’t be stepping on a bodybuilding stage anytime soon.
If you really do want to weigh everything out and hit all your targets to the microgram – all the power to you.
But for me – and most people – that’s just not worth it.
Christmas and Thanksgiving come around once a year, and enjoying festive food with family and friends is one of life’s greatest pleasures.
You might see a little bump up in your weight for a few days after a holiday meal, but it’s not going to stick around.
If you’re keeping your indulgences to a day or two, you would have to eat an inhuman amount of food for it to meaningfully impact how much body fat you have.
So enjoy it.
MISTAKE #3: HAVING NO PLAN
Going in strict is probably overkill – but going in blind isn’t a great idea either.
Here are three options to consider:
- You could lighten up on your meals surrounding the festive feast to help offset it
- You could fast for the morning to help create a bigger calorie ‘buffer’
- You could plan to take a small diet break or maintenance period through the holidays
All of these things allow you to still stay ‘on track’ AND enjoy some pie and cookies.
See what I mean?
Plan ahead – and decide what a win looks like for you over the holidays.
Even a small choice can make a big impact! You could bring your own diet-friendly drinks if you don’t want to be beholden to the liquor cabinet/fridge of your host.
Sit down and ask yourself what you would feel good about doing, then do that.
But go enjoy your festive feast!
And if anyone gives you grief for eating tasty treats… tell them Matteo said it was cool.
