Health Values and Visiting Great Cooks

This past weekend, I picked an idea for handling “holiday” stress from one of Fiona Ferris’s other books, A Chic and Simple Christmas to try. It just so happens that on this weekend, I traveled to visit some wonderful extended family members. So, why was I reading ideas on how to handle stress, you naturally ask. Well, not only are the family members wonderful people, they are also wonderful cooks. And I am trying to follow a Keto food plan (basically, eating very low sugar/low carb.) It’s been surprisingly easy to adapt to this approach as long as I am not surrounded by delicious home-baked sweets, donuts, cakes, cookies…. all the things that I was surrounded by during the visit.

The last time I visited these same people, I threw myself happily off the Keto bandwagon and sugared it up for three days. I then returned to my usual Keto ways once I returned home. The problem was that I actually felt rather woozy and slightly ill the whole time I was there which is not much fun.

So, this visit, I decided to try a different approach. A more intentional, planned approach. I remembered that Fiona had mentioned the idea of a “pre-holiday-food-game-plan” in her book, A Chic and Simple Christmas. I cracked open the book a few days before the visit to look for some good ideas. Of course, the most pertinent idea that was the one that I remembered from my last read: set up your mind and holiday plan so that you already know that at each meal you have already decided to pick the food options that agree with your health values. No need to make a fresh decision at each meal or at each snack time. In my case, my pre-made decisions were:

1. eat only when sitting down at meal times with everyone at the table (so, late night cookie runs are not even a thought.)

2. choose the low-carb options (no need to think about the mac&cheese with toasted bread crumb topping, it’s already off the thought menu.)

3. no alcohol

I also enlisted the help of my cousin (who is both humorous and pretty laid back) as my food accountability partner. I texted her my food diary at the end of each day. The thought of not only writing down that I threw myself head-first into some freshly made, warm lemon-orange cake but then reporting it at the end of the day stopped me cold right in my cake-is-healthy rationalizing tracks!

(Side note: I am a big believer in enjoying good food and good company. And I do usually include delicious cake as part of the “good food” definition. However, for right this moment, I have put cake in my “do not touch” list. And I very much want to honor my short-term health commitments. I will return to my usual less-stringent approach after Christmas.)

The other ideas from Fiona’s book that I found helpful in sticking to my health values were to make sure I got plenty of rest and that I had a planned “spa treatment” for every evening shower. I packed wonderful facial scrubs & creams and hair masks – one to try each evening (I felt like such a pampered super-star each night when I turned out the lights!) I also made sure to take a lovely, at-least-30 minute walk each morning before breakfast and repeat my affirmations to myself. This set up my mindset for each day: the objective was to be calm, chic and a happy, appreciative guest.

So, Fiona’s planned “holiday approach” idea combined with the idea of an accountability partner actually worked for me! I was so relaxed during the visit because I already had a plan set up in my mind. I was able to enjoy some fabulous company and many long meals sitting at the dinner table, laughing and talking and telling stories…. and NOT break my health commitments to myself! (My tummy also felt much better the whole weekend.)

(Note: the idea of an accountability partner came from Gretchen Rubin’s book, Better Than Before. Usually, accountability partners are very helpful for people who lean more to the Obliger type. According to Rubin’s personality quiz, I lean more to the Questioner mixed with Rebel type (which doesn’t usually gel with the idea of an external accountability source.) I enlisted my cousin as a spur of the moment idea but I am so glad that I did! Again, it was more the idea of admitting that I fell down on my own values that proved useful by giving me just one more second to think about things before I gave in to temptation.  And my cousin is wonderfully supportive and would text me back the best encouragement and “high fives” each day. As we all know, having one’s own cheering section does help shore up our confidence.)

So, kudo’s to Fiona and Gretchen! My thought is to practice the plan for the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays (which I will spend with the same lovely family members and all their wonderful cooking… and a few stressful additions.) Keep your fingers crossed for me!