Post Thanksgiving Musings - A "Normal" Holiday

Had an awesome Thanksgiving - filled the house with family and enjoyed every minute of it. Company started arriving Wednesday and the last left yesterday afternoon. The house seems a little quiet today as we are all winding down and getting ready to head back to work tomorrow.

So how did the holiday go food/exercise wise? It went exactly as planned - as a normal part of life. This is my second Thanksgiving since changing my life and at this point after 19 months everything seemed normal to me. I ate primal/lowcarb the whole time - smoked turkey, ham, roast cauliflower, butter, fage, cream, awesome pecan pie bites, apple chutney, etc.... it was downright luxurious and I never felt one iota of longing for any of my "old" treats.

It is very liberating to feel normal again - I am reminded of it everyday as life goes on everything that I changed to lose all of the weight has become normal. It is not a burden or some overly complicated routine of measuring, counting, timing....It is not angst and hand wringing every time I go out to eat or have a work function. If I go out - there is always something on the menu that I can fit in with my primal diet. If I go to a work function there is usually something I can snack on or worst case I do an impromptu IF.

I always thought the whole room would notice, that someone not eating the bread would be the three headed gorilla in the room....nope as is the case with myself people are generally most interested in what they are doing/eating and not what others are. Reading the message boards I see the angst and trepidation a lot of newcomers have about how in the world will they survive "going out", "a family function", "Thanksgiving", etc....my answer is you don't "survive" these events! Rather learn to incorporate them into a normal lifestyle.

This doesn't mean foregoing your dietary goals and plan, but rather adapting to the situation and realizing that 99.9% of the time you should be able to enjoy the event whether it be eating some portion of the food, requesting small modifications if you order, or even skipping the food every now and then as part of an IF. Absolute worst case - a small surrender will not derail all of your progress - however in 19 months and almost two complete set of holidays, business lunches, birthdays, funerals, weddings,etc.. I have not found this to be necessary even once!

I wish I knew now what I didn't know then as I was packing that extra 180 pounds of weight or suffering with it for all those years dragging on my existence. If I knew I could live happily, enjoy life including food and activity, and be fit without it being a constant burden maybe I would have started sooner and I would now have a couple extra years of happy memories.

Hindsight is 20/20 - hopefully for those out there waiting to get started or even along the way you can incorporate this advice: whatever you are doing to change your life - remember you need to make it your new normal. Do this and hopefully like I have experienced - staying fit and healthy will become almost effortless in your mind regardless of the difference in effort between the old you and the new you.

-LL