The holiday season presents one of the biggest challenges of staying on track with healthy eating and weight loss.

From the time that stores fill with candy in October, till the very end of December, we are surrounded by delicious unhealthy treats.

That’s three whole months of pure temptation every year, which represents 1/4 of your life.

I bring up this point because when you realize how long the holiday season is and that it will inevitably come each year… you eventually come to see that to reach your long-term weight loss goal, you’ll need to make some healthy decisions during the holidays so that you can stay on track.

If you don’t plan to outright lose weight during the holidays it’s best to at least make some healthy choices so that you can prevent weight gain and maintain your current shape until the season passes and you’re ready to get back into it.

I am very strict with my diet, but even I like to indulge during the holidays, especially during Christmas.

But the key is to not let my indulgences ruin my progress, and to not let the occasional treat ruin everything and make me want to give up.

In this article I’ll show you how to make some very effective and easy healthy decisions during this holiday season.

By making some small adjustments to your eating habits during the holiday season, you will make a big reduction in how many calories you consume, but still be able to enjoy the foods that you love.

I’ll teach you how to avoid holiday weight gain… and for those of you who want to go above and beyond I’ll even show you how to lose weight during the holidays!

Master moderation during the holidays

The holidays are a perfect time to embrace and master the concept of moderation and how powerful it can be for you on your weight loss journey.

Lots of people don’t realize how much of a difference moderation can make because it feels like once you have eaten some of an unhealthy thing, that you’ve messed everything up and you might as well eat the rest of it anyways.

But in reality, reducing the amount that you eat of something unhealthy, makes a huge difference.

The higher in calories that the food is, the more impact that you will make by reducing your portion size of it.

I typically prefer to focus on the foods that you are adding into your diet rather than stressing over restrictions… since healthy foods literally replace the room that you have in your body and mind for unhealthy foods anyways… however making an active effort to reduce unhealthy foods is still a very important step in losing weight.

The holiday season especially is a time when it pays off big to be a little self-aware of where you should draw the line.

A powerful technique that I like to use, that works in actuality and on a mental level, is agreeing with yourself to have less quantity when you give into your unhealthy cravings.

That way, even if you don’t make the optimal choice, you are still making a positive difference compared to your previous habits… and therefore consuming fewer calories than you would have otherwise. Depending on how many healthy decisions you make during this time, it will either lead to prevention of weight gain or outright loss of weight.

For me when it came to reducing treats on a regular basis such as soda or pie, when I unexpectedly gave into a craving I would have half of my normal amount.

I’m not going to lie, when I was just beginning to improve my eating habits, sometimes having half still meant having two or three pieces of pie, because at that time I could have easily eaten half of a pie in one sitting.

But that’s the beauty of it, is that all you need to do is improve and be consistent, not perfect.

So what if I drank two sodas on a day where I would have normally drank 4?

Yes it would be better to drink zero, and now I have given up soda completely… but it took me time to get there and lots of wiggle room along the way.

When I was losing weight very quickly it wasn’t because I was being perfect with my diet, it was because I was consistently improving, and the idea of perfection wasn’t getting in my way and making me want to give up all the time.

So during the holidays when it comes to giving in to an unhealthy food that you did not intend to eat it all… have half.

When it comes to eating unhealthy foods during the season that you planned on eating anyways, but you feel a little guilty about… perhaps have just a little bit of less, if not half.

When it comes to the day of the holiday itself, it’s really only one day and so it’s up to you how you’d like to spend it.

How I personally handle it is the following:

During the entire season excluding the holidays themselves, life goes on normally for me and I stay fairly strict with my diet.

Halloween does not affect me at all because candy is something that has fallen out of my life completely.

On Thanksgiving I will usually allow myself to eat one big meal with anything that I would like, and then I resume my normal healthy eating habits for the rest of the day. I have no urge to drink soda with my meal anymore, but sometimes on Thanksgiving I will have a piece of pie, or even 2… But not 10.

I typically refuse taking home most leftovers because that’s where the real trouble starts, and presents the opportunity to eat unhealthy for up to a full week.

However I will take as much plain turkey as I can get, as it’s incredibly healthy.

So as these holidays pass by, practice moderation both to get some actual results going for yourself, and also to prepare yourself for next year when you really hit things hard.

Prepare for the new year

You don’t have to wait for the new year to come, to start making healthy changes.

Even if you decide to take it easy and make a few healthy choices, it will go a long way towards preparing you to lose lots of weight next year!

If you can start building a habit of eating healthier and exercising more today, you’ll prove to yourself that you have what it takes to succeed in the year to come, you’ll get an early start on your progress, and you will have mentally prepared yourself to take your healthy habits to the next level.

You can simply start by eating one healthy meal every day, and dedicate to exercising at least once per week during the holidays for at least 15 minutes.

Then when New Year’s Day comes you’ll be ready to begin living healthy lifestyle that will lead you quickly to your weight loss goal.

Eat your healthy foods early

This will help for any time of the year, but during the holidays especially it helps greatly to eat as many healthy foods as you can, as early as possible.

Eating healthy in the morning is the perfect way to make sure that you make a healthy impact on your day, even if you slip up a little bit in the evening.

Start your day with the highly nutritious low-calorie breakfast, and not only will that in itself keep your daily calories lower, but it may also inspire you to continue making healthy choices throughout the day.

I find that if I eat an unhealthy food in the morning, it makes it a little bit harder for me to get back on track and eat healthy later in the day… and so I strive to almost always start my morning with super healthy foods to give myself the best chance possible for a having a very healthy day, and also to minimize the negative effects of any unhealthy food that I might give in to later in the evening.

The day of vs. the entire season

There is a big difference between eating unhealthy and gaining weight on a single holiday, and gaining weight throughout the entire holiday season.

It’s not the individual days of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas that pack on so many pounds, it’s eating snacks and treats and lots of super unhealthy food throughout the whole season that can all add up to make you gain so much weight.

If you stay on track with your healthy diet throughout most of the season, indulging on the holidays themselves will not make that big of a difference.

So rather than completely giving up on your diet and giving into your cravings for a period of three months straight, simply do the best that you can on normal days and then decide how much / if you want to limit yourself on the holiday itself.

The point is to not let one day make you feel like you’ve ruined everything, and then lead you to giving up and starting over.

You can still live your life with occasional indulgences while losing weight. What’s important is that you take more steps forward than you do backwards on a weekly / monthly basis.

Holiday foods: The good and the bad

Here’s a few tips on which holiday foods are unhealthy, and which are not so bad… and how to enjoy them in a healthier way as the seasons change.

An important note that covers all of these foods, as well as all other unhealthy Foods… is to remember to replace unhealthy foods with healthy ones instead of simply going hungry. This will keep your calorie count low and keep you satisfied and full!

Halloween

Halloween maybe just one day, but the holiday leaves candy around the house for months, especially for those who have kids or pass out candy.

The thing about candy is that it never really goes bad, and most people just eat it until it’s gone no matter how much is in the house.

If candy is going to be around for a while and you don’t plan to throw it away then consider limiting yourself everyday if it’s something that you find yourself eating too much of.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a unique holiday where the entire day is focused on a big meal.

But like Halloween, Thanksgiving can leave leftover unhealthy foods for a long period of time, which can lead to you packing on more pounds than you had originally planned.

For Thanksgiving, whether or not you decide to eat healthy on the day itself, do your best to not let the unhealthy eating carry on for days or weeks after.

If the gravy was made from turkey drippings then reducing the amount that you eat will make a huge reduction in your calories for the day. Instead of drowning your meal and gravy, simply drip some over the top.

If the potatoes have lots of butter in them, then consider reducing your portion size of those as well.

However the turkey itself is very healthy, and high in protein.

As far as treats like pie go, just do your best to put the least amount of toppings on that you can, while still enjoying yourself. As mentioned earlier in the article, consider having about half of what you would normally eat if you give into your cravings for unhealthy foods.

Remember that moderation does make a huge difference!

Christmas

Not only does Christmas usually contain a Thanksgiving sized meal, but the entire season is filled with Christmas cookies.

Just saying the word Christmas cookies fills my brain with all different kinds of colors and cravings for flavors, and makes me want to revert to my old habits and go buy two dozen cookies from the store across the street from the library in my town.

You can’t always predict when the treats will come at Christmas either, because all of the gift-giving and cheerful treat sharing in all of the places that you go!

The same principles mentioned previously in this article apply here… fill up on his many healthy foods as you can to replace the unhealthy ones, and practice moderation so that you can make consistent healthy improvements without the stress of feeling like you have to be perfect.

If losing weight is very important to you, then be strong during Christmas and the entire holiday season, make as many healthy decisions as you can, and get ready for the year to come, when it will be your time to completely transform yourself.

I hope you enjoyed these holiday weight loss tips, but more importantly I hope that they help you to stay on track with your weight loss efforts, even when there are so many holiday treats around to tempt you!