How Not To Gain A Thousand Pounds During The Holidays

As you may have discovered, there is no possible way to maintain a normal diet in December. Egg nog, panettone and tourtière will obliterate your standards faster than you can say “bah, humbug.” It’s bad news. It’s delicious, succulent, sweet bad news. With the apex of Yuletide festivities slowly dwindling away, we must retain some shred of self-reliability and take note of what not-to do next year. People generally don’t want to buy bigger pants during Boxing Week sales. Despite how hopeless it may seem at times, there are actually ways to avoid embarking on a completely indulgent holiday death binge. Here’s how!

RUN AWAY

And then run back again! Running is great way to prevent pillars of plaque from seething into your heart and ending your life. Post-digestive loafing around seems to be the norm for many North Americans celebrating the holidays. Your body could benefit from nothing less than a jolt of acceleration- sweat, contraction, vasodilatation, it’s necessary! If you are a lazy piece of shit and cannot feel motivated / cannot convince yourself that exercise isn’t totally boring, try finding an external source of inspiration. For example, get high and pretend that cops are chasing you until you actually believe it. Or aim for a “runner’s high,” which feels like an orgasm except amplified drastically throughout your entire body. Even if you can’t run for a long time or at all, at least try something that stimulates your metabolism. Your life basically depends on it.

CHOOSE GREEN / BEAN FOODS

Everyone always tells you to eat kale because it gives you super-immunity and makes your finger nails shiny and cures cancer or some shit, but the real reason you should be eating food, any food, is so that you can process it and excrete it out of your ass, essentially. During the holidays, remind yourself that fibrous foods slide through your intestines with ease and grace and so inevitably, the collateral damage on your bloated, disgusting viscera will be nilch. A few examples of fibrous foods- in case you live in a cave- are: chick peas, black beans, lentils, broccoli, brussel sprouts, avocados, and pears. Obviously drink lots of water to keep things moving as well. It’s all about listening to your inner self- your deepest, darkest self- literally. This kind of conscientiousness is sort of like bulimia, except you aren’t eroding the enamel off your teeth and/or burning up your trachea. On top of that you get to keep the vitamins and nutrients that your food has to offer you, AND you aren’t intrinsically defined by shame. It’s win/win situation.

CHEW GUM

Sugar is fucking addictive. That’s not a hyperbole, it’s the truth. If you find yourself headed to the cookie table for the fifth time in a row, stop yourself and think again. Now slowly reach into your pocket. Pull out the gum pack. Take out a piece and throw into your face hole. It’s an emergency flavor simulator that satisfies your taste buds and simultaneously cleans your teeth. Adult gum though, not children gum. Keep a pack in your pocket forever and you’ll always have something to distract you from mouth-watering temptations. What are the ingredients in gum? Carcinogens, probably, but it’s totally worth it. Nothing else has the capacity to save one from so many bad, body-altering decisions, except maybe willpower.

FIND A SUGAR-FREE BEVERAGE THAT YOU LIKE

Beer and wine and soda, of course, is loaded with sugar, which turns to fat when you don’t do anything with all that energy. It’s fascinatingly difficult for Westerners to use up all the glucose that they’re forcing into their gullets. In any case, it’s very unlikely that your will be at an equilibrium during the holidays, unless you simply lower your Caloric consumption. Sometimes the easiest way to do that is to cut down on sugar in beverages. It’s totally unnecessary and so easy to get carried away with. Large capuccinos or several glasses of wine are just too sneaky. Lemon and club soda is a great alternative to sugary drinks. Its fun and bubbly and acidic. Fruity balsamic vinegar- believe it or not- is also a great low-sugar alternative for mixed drinks. Vinegar also stimulates the digestive system! That’s multi-tasking!

CONTROL YOUR PORTION SIZES

Tiny things are cuter anyway. If your plate weighs more than three pounds in your hand, it’s probably not going to feel too awesome in fifteen minutes when it’s sledging down your insides. You don’t have to be pretentious or draw attention to yourself either. You just have look at the food that you want to eat, imagine realistically digesting it in the future, and take your time ENJOYING IT. What feels ~comfortable~? Tour the flavors of the holidays in a sensible way– not a fast-food dining chain kind of way. Just because you enjoy turkey and there is a lot of it sitting around, doesn’t mean you have to consume more than a palm-sized portion durning dinner. It’s perfectly neat and cute and flavorful. It fits in your bowels. It’s good.

If you can’t handle any of these tips then maybe consider talking to someone else who can help you!? Weight gain and loss is a touchy subject because the media distorts information to make their audiences feel vulnerable, or something of the sort, but remember that you are in charge of your own body and you know what feels good. Not even the CEO of McDonald’s knows what makes you, personally, wholly, feel good. If overeating and shoving copious amounts of sugar into your body is something you truly want to do then you’re following your own tumultuous path and that’s fine. If shitting a brick made out of bread and meat and cookies feels good then you probably shouldn’t be reading this. For the rest of us: good luck and stay ~in tune~.