The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies (66 page)

Chapter 12
:
Navigating Special Occasions

In This Chapter

Conquering the obstacles of special occasions

Discovering the best food options for you in any situation

Listing the top low-glycemic choices for holidays, vacations, and parties

I
f you've followed specific dietary guidelines for weight loss or a health condition in the past, then you're all too aware of how easy it is to slide back into old habits during the holidays, at parties, and on vacations. Balance is the key to staying on track in these situations — but that of course is easier to write about than to actually find. If you lean too much toward the moderation side, you can end up going overboard. On the contrary, if you lean too much toward the strict side, you can end up being miserable, or worse, missing out on special occasions.

Healthcare and wellness professionals throw out the word
balance
all the time, but very few of them define what that may look like and how it can be realistic for your lifestyle. In this chapter, I help you find that ever-elusive balance so you can enjoy special occasions without backsliding for months afterward.

Overcoming the Challenges Posed by Vacations, Holidays, and Parties

Odds are you've experienced setbacks to your weight-loss goals when faced with a work party, family or religious holiday, or a week-long vacation. But do you really understand wy you got thrown off course? Following are some reasons why these special occasions pose a problem:

People insist on giving you high-glycemic, high-calorie food gifts.
Getting homemade cookies from your friends during the winter holidays is common. You may even love to make these treats yourself. Although indulging a little is fine, having too many treats can work against you.

Holiday gatherings and parties feature a limited amount of healthy choices and too much of the high-glycemic, high-calorie stuff.
When you show up at either of these events, you never know whether low-glycemic foods will be on the menu. What you do know is that the number of high-glycemic, high-calorie foods will be, well, sky high! Being surrounded by so many foods can make it difficult to find the right balance on your plate. Fortunately parties and holiday gatherings are usually just one-day affairs, which won't hurt your weight-loss efforts. During the holiday season, however, you may find yourself going to many parties, which makes the ability to find that right balance far more important.

Your
motivation to make balanced choices is decidedly lacking.
Special occasions can easily lead to a lack of motivation, which means not thinking (or caring) about your food choices. It's almost like an internal switch turns off during vacations, parties, and holidays, leading to unconscious eating.

Past conditioning has you thinking it's okay to eat "all bad foods" on special occasions.
Many people view foods as good and bad. "Good" foods are for regular situations; "bad" foods are for special occasions, like vacations and holidays. Do you ever find yourself thinking, "When I'm on vacation, I'm going to eat everything bad"? This mindset treats the "bad" food like a reward or a natural part of your vacation. Such conditioning can be passed down through families.

One or two days of overindulging can't cause you to gain weight, but several weeks or even months of overindulging most certainly can. When you give in to any of the challenges posed by special occasions, the effects almost always linger for a longer period of time than the actual event.

However, now that you know some of the reasons why holidays, vacations, and parties are so tough to get through, you're better prepared to overcome the challenges they present. In the following sections, I share advice for eating what you want on special occasions while still staying on track with your low-glycemic lifestyle.

Avoiding the all-or-nothing mentality

I'm a firm believer that an all-or-nothing attitude toward dietary guidelines is not only one of the biggest diet traps but that it also makes true lifestyle change more difficult. Only a handful of people do really well with a strict diet protocol (and that's often only because they
must
follow a strict diet due to a food allergy or gastrointestinal problems). Most people do better with a diet that leaves room for flexibility, which is one of the draws of the low-glycemic diet.

Perhaps you've found yourself in the
all-or-nothing trap
(also known as the
good-and-bad trap
) before. You feel that you're either being "good" because you're following your guidelines to a tee or being "bad" because you're not following them at all. People fall into this trap during regular times of the year, but I see it happen most often during holidays and vacations. Why? Because in most cases people have either made a conscious decision that they'll get back on track next month post-holiday/vacation or they've decided to be completely unconscious and not think about their food choices at all.

The problem with the all-or-nothing mentality is that you end up treating your new dietary guidelines as a temporary thing and not a part of your low-glycemic lifestyle. Telling yourself you're being good or bad can lead you to think, "Well, if I'm going to be bad, then I'd better eat everything now." When you think this way during the holidays or for one or two weeks while on vacation, you run the risk of regaining some weight, which often leads to feelings of guilt and frustration as well as a never-ending cycle of gaining and losing weight.