Write it off as just another day, another broken day in the year. A day that sees you on a downhill slide lurching from extremes of excess eating and drinking followed by guilt-driven restriction. Parties followed by extreme exercise and radical dieting or guilt and regret? Thoughts of 'why can't I eat perfectly like ..... (the favoured fitspiration celeb of the month)? Is that what it's like for you?

It doesn’t have to be that way. You can step off the devastating slippery slide by taking a fresh look at how you think about and react to ‘wayward’ consumption.

For a start, one day of ‘wayward’ eating or drinking is not a concern

A one-off doesn’t ‘wreck your plan’, ‘ruin your success’ or ‘mean you’ve blown it’.

'Wayward' doesn't exist.

Your body doesn’t clock on and off every day; it runs on a continuous adjusting cycle over your entire life. Tap into that cycle and look at how your week and month are going.

There are plenty more days in the week and month that allow you and your body to adjust and account for the extras you have.

What happens in the longer time-frame is more important than what you just did in a single day or single meal.

---

trust that it is perfectly okay not to eat perfectly!

It is perfectly okay to eat more one day and less the next. It is actually very normal to eat more sometimes, less at other times.

It is perfectly okay to balance your food choices over a week and not get locked into or wound up and worried about daily targets.

It is perfectly okay to save up red-extras (you might call them forbidden foods but I don’t) for a feast.

Extreme food restriction and dieting will trip you up, each and every time

Your body and mind will fight you all the way if you cut down the kilojoules too low or start putting too many foods in a totally forbidden zone.

You will go to the event starving which makes you more sensitive to the effects of alcohol.

Persistent self-talk will convince you to break lose with a ‘what the heck’ attitude, ‘after all you’ve been good’, and entice you to party hard and overindulge because ‘you can jump back on the strict diet tomorrow’.

---

adjust your personal goals

Accept that over the silly season with more wining and dining, preventing further weight gain may be the new season’s goal if you are overweight.

Be more discerning about when, where and with whom you celebrate.

• The timing may mean there’s no need for a full meal to follow.
• The venue may offer you little choice or not involve eating or drinking.
• The people may by good or bad influences or unimportant in your life.

---

develop a party strategy

Finger food and platters

1. Position yourself away from the kitchen, servery area or food table.
2. When presented with a platter to choose from, make a selection and take a small bite and really taste it.
   • Is it too hot, too cold, too greasy, too tough or too awkward to eat?
   • Does it have a terrible or disappointing taste or is it absolutely delicious?
   • If it is not absolutely delicious, why finish it? Discretely wrap the uneaten portion in a serviette. Leave it on the table or bin it and wait for the next food choice to arrive and sample.
3. Keep your hands busy so that it is harder to keep on eating. Hold a glass in one hand, a camera, jacket or bag in the other.
4. Choose not to eat or not to eat each time a platter is presented. No one really notices whether or how often you eat.
5. Open your mouth to conversation rather than food.
6. Offer to take a platter of fresh seasonal fruit, seafood or other food that you’d feel happiest to eat and share.
7. Serve foods and drinks at your events that are in line with your eating goals.

Formal sit-down dinners

1. Offer to help the host plate up the meals - that way you can serve the best amount for yourself.
2. Feel comfortable about leaving some of each course behind knowing that there is more to come.
3. Taste and enjoy each course and stop when you have had enough or the taste is no longer exciting or enticing.
   • If necessary, explain that you’re not used to eating three courses and you want to keep room to try each one.
4. Don’t want dessert but don’t want to say no thanks to the hosts?
   • Say you’re too full already but you’d love to take a little serve home. You can choose to bin it straight away or eat it another day.

---

save uniquely special foods for special days

Look forward to the Christmas goodies on Christmas Day.

• If it’s fruit mince tarts you want for breakfast on Christmas Day, go for it.
• At Easter, save the easter buns and chocolate eggs for the big day.
• gorgeous chocolates on Valentines Day if that is what your heart desires.

Anticipation is part of the excitement of special occasion foods.

• A stockpile in the pantry weeks before the big day presents a daily challenge for you to say no.
• It also makes them ho-hum and less special. If you do buy ahead, pack non-perishable foods for celebrations into a cardboard box that is kept out of sight, in a deep cupboard or less used room.

By keeping special foods truly special, you’ll feel good about enjoying them on the big day.

 

avoid attempting a trade-off between exercise and food

Think you can easily burn off the kilojoules in a night of partying? A nice thought and being active is great but in reality, trying to burn off excess kJs with more exercise is close to futile.

Exercise is great for clearing the cobwebs and freshening up.

An active body is also better able to naturally regulate its size and intake.

Exercise does burn calories (kJs) but the amount of effort you need to put in to burn a meal’s kJs is more than most normal folk can dream of doing.

Consider locking in an exercise session or walk with a buddy for the morning after a party, not to burn off the booze and food but because you just might be less inclined to overindulge when you know you have an early start the next day.

 

better manage your social diary

Be selective about which invitations you accept.

Arrive late or depart early to reduce eating and drinking time and opportunities.

Plan get-togethers and social catch-ups that don’t involve eating and alcohol.