How the ‘50% rule’ can prevent holiday weight gain

As a private coach for 15 years, I’ve spent many vacation seasons serving to purchasers prevent weight gain and different undesirable unwanted side effects of the celebratory time between Thanksgiving and New 12 months’s Day.

The very first thing I train them is the 50% rule.

For years I’ve been utilizing this technique myself and since it labored so properly in serving to me preserve my very own well being over the vacations, I made a decision to begin introducing it to my personal purchasers. I’ve been blown away by the distinction it’s made.

The 50% rule is easy: You solely put in 50% of the trouble towards your aim. In different phrases, take your aim, no matter it’s, and slice it in half.

Living proof: One in every of my purchasers had set a aim to walk 10,000 steps a day. It was the day after Thanksgiving, and she or he was so down on herself in our teaching session. She felt like a “failure.” I requested her if this aim was actually life like and the way she would really feel if her aim was 50% of that, simply 5,000 steps a day. She informed me she could be ecstatic as a result of she simply hits 5,000 steps day by day. So we determined that in the course of the holidays we’d lower her aim by 50% and set it at 5,000 steps a day. Anytime she went over (which she did, 100% of the time!) I wished her to have a good time. Because of this, she had the healthiest holiday season of her life as a result of she felt so motivated by attaining (and surpassing) her aim. The success inspired her to stay to different wholesome habits and stored the momentum going.

You can too apply the 50% rule to having fun with indulgences in the course of the vacation season, whether or not it’s consolation meals or festive cocktails.

Listed below are three widespread (but unrealistic) well being guidelines that I hear purchasers set this time of yr and the way we use my 50% rule to switch them and encourage wholesome behaviors, minus the guilt.

Actually?! Let’s strive: I’ll eat half of the desserts that I usually do. I take advantage of this rule myself. As a substitute of grabbing a sugar cookie out of the cookie jar, I break it in half and solely eat one half at a time. My 50% rule permits me to benefit from the cookie, however helps forestall me from overdoing it. I take pleasure in the way it tastes, the feel in my mouth and the scent, after which I transfer on. If I need one other cookie, I break off half of it and revel in.

I used to really feel this manner and it stored me in a vacation exercise desert for years! Nonetheless, after I actually labored on my mindset I noticed that quarter-hour was higher than zero. Simply because I take pleasure in 30-minute workouts on common days doesn’t imply I wanted to forego my exercise fully on the times that I don’t have that a lot time. So in the course of the holidays, after I’m spending time with my kin and buddies, I lower my exercise time in half. As soon as I did this for the primary time (the day earlier than Thanksgiving about 10 years in the past), I by no means seemed again. I nonetheless get the “feel-good” endorphins and I’m pleased with myself, like I did one thing optimistic. Every time I discover myself caught within the mindset of “I have to do a exercise for X variety of minutes to ensure that it to be value it” I at all times remind myself that I’ll reap the same mental benefits by exercising for half the time.

That is what number of of my purchasers view their drinking habits during the holidays. I take advantage of my 50% rule each season to make sure that I’m not waking up hungover or sluggish. I began to concentrate on how I wished to really feel day by day. Did I wish to get up the subsequent day feeling sluggish, torpid or having a headache? No! So I made a decision to look forward after which plan forward. I begin by estimating what number of glasses of wine or cocktails I’ll devour on a given event. Pink wine with my mother’s annual Christmas Eve’s spaghetti night time? As a substitute of three glasses, my aim is 1.5 glasses whole. This straightforward rule single-handedly made me turn out to be extra cognizant of my alcohol consumption and permits me to take pleasure in myself whereas making certain I’ve a productive and energetic morning the subsequent day!