5 Tips to Thrive This Holiday Season

The true spirit of the holiday season is meant to fill you with appreciation and love. Instead, it is sometimes fraught with the emotional and financial stress of excessive holiday shopping, additional time draining responsibilities, and added food challenges with the abundance of sweets and special meals.

No need to let holiday stress derail your weight loss plans. Here are five tips to stay focused on what matters most so you can enjoy the season while remaining true to your journey.

1. Bless Your Food

Take time this holiday season to bless the food you give to your body.  By blessing your food, you infuse it with uplifting spiritual energy. At the family dinner table, or at an abundant buffet, simply say silently before eating, “I bless this food for nourishing my body” or, “I bless this food for bringing me pleasure.” As you do this, with a grateful heart, you’ll notice a calming inside of you.  This helps you eat in a balanced, conscious way. If feeling triggered to eat for emotional reasons, do this as well. You’ll find renewed strength that brings a sense of peace to quiet your struggle.

2. Take Breathing Breaks

Your breath is an effective calming tool. Practice this four step breathing process to help you eat mindfully at holiday gatherings, to ground yourself when surrounded by holiday stress, or to calm inner turmoil triggering an emotional eating episode:

1. Breathe in while counting to four.
2. Hold the breath for four counts.
3. Release the breath while counting to four.
4. Hold the breath for four counts.

Repeat the above sequence several times until you feel settled. You’ll then feel more grounded to make choices with your well-being in mind.

3. Take Appreciation Breaks

A state of appreciation raises your energetic vibration. It literally changes your physiology to uplift your mood and boost your energy. Practice this simple process to infuse your mind and body with love and appreciation:

1. Focus your attention on your heart.
2. Imagine breathing through your heart.
3. Think of someone you love or a beautiful memory.

When you practice this, you’ll notice an immediate inner calm. Take regular appreciation breaks during this holiday season. Doing so helps you rise above external stress to remain focused on what really matters.

4. Set Boundaries

The quickest way to feel resentful and angry is to say “Yes” when you really mean “No”. Dishonoring what feels true for you is one of the biggest emotional eating triggers. This holiday season, give yourself permission to break free from people pleasing tendencies. Set boundaries on your time, on added responsibilities and on spending money you don’t have. When you honor yourself this way, you feel lighter on the inside. You’ll then notice an uplifting shift in your relationship with your body and food as well.

5. Keep it in Perspective

Holidays are meant to be fun. Don’t let weight or food preoccupations stop you from enjoying the festivities. It’s OK to eat what you enjoy at a special time of year. This doesn’t mean you disregard your health and well-being. It means you refrain from being hard on yourself. One or two abundant holiday meals, or extra offerings of special holiday treats and dishes doesn’t have to derail you. Hold an accepting attitude because guilt and remorse only perpetuate emotional eating. If you believe you ate too many pieces of your aunt’s chocolate layer cake, so what? Give it no power, let it go and move on. Keeping it in perspective gives you a peaceful mind to gracefully move forward in your weight release journey through this holiday season.

Your thoughts…
How will these tips will help you stay true to your weight loss goals?

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