Holiday Excuses

It's easy to make excuses for various things around the holidays. Not only is it a special time of year, but the weather is cold. Around here, it's much colder than we usually have and the wind is blowing to beat the band, making being outside not very inviting. So, for me, the excuse list goes something like this:

-"Sure we can make dessert - it's Advent time!"

-"The weather is awful. I don't think I'll walk to the library today. I'll drive instead."

-"It's my birthday week - let's celebrate all week with special food!"

-"It's too miserable out to go for a walk/bike ride/hike."

-"We're going out for (insert various special activities), let's eat out, too!"

Now, even when I eat out, I remain vegan and usually do my best to not eat a lot of junky food. I try to stay away from oil laden foods. Still, that's harder when eating out and sometimes I'm surprised by what's in my food, but eat it anyway.

Also, our desserts are very healthy by most standards. We make cookies that are mostly sweetened by no sugar apple sauce and have no oil or other concentrated fat, for example. I do sometimes add a little agave nectar or molasses and, for a real treat (hey - it's the holidays!), date sugar. Or we'll make no bake cookies with ground walnuts, dates, raw cacao powder, cinnamon and oatmeal. Still, these foods are extras and have calories, especially the no bake cookies, as much as they are also nutrient loaded.

I usually try not to let the weather stop me from being outside by just dressing appropriately, but I'll tell you what, the high winds with the bitter cold is just not working for me.

All this is leading to the need for me to be more conscientious about how I'm treating my body. I don't really want to add on pounds over the holiday and I want to stay in good shape. I like my body that way. I like fitting into my clothes. I like being able to do partner tricks with Davan, take a hike or whatever other physical activity may come my way. I like how my body feels when I'm working out and after.

Mostly I'm just keeping all this in mind, which helps me to make better choices. However, I have one tangible goal for the rest of December (excepting Christmas Day). I am going to make one meal each day a fruit and veggie only meal to counterbalance the indulgences. This morning, I put together different breakfasts for myself and Davan. She got two grapefruits, an almond butter and fruit spread (no added sugar) sandwich with leftover Saturday pancakes and a mug of tea. For myself, I made a smoothie of an orange, a frozen banana, a couple cups of spinach, three stalks of celery, a small knob of ginger and some water. And I get tea, too, as I like.

Davan and I also did bow to the weather by not going out to work out this morning. Mondays are the day we work out together, taking it in turns to come up with the workout for the day. Today was my day. We've been doing a lot of circuits together, which is fine, but today I wanted something a little different. We broke out the dance mats. We own a Playstation, which, post Max, has seen very little action. Once every few months Anthony will spend a couple of hours messing with it. We'd actually gotten it for Anthony as a Father's Day gift many years ago. It got a fair amount of use at first, including me using it for DDR and other active games. For the past few years, though, I've preferred workouts that don't involve the TV for the most part. This morning, however, seemed to call for something different.

We danced songs alternating with strength building - pull ups, holding plank, dips, squats, ect. We had a good time and I did get breathing, which is the point. I can see it being useful for those really bad weather days when I still want to get in a cardio workout.

So, bow to the weather and holiday season? Yes, to an extent. It is a special time of the year, right? But, it's also important to stay true to what's important, but has a tendency to slip. For me, that's healthy eating (both in type of food and not overeating) and keeping up my fitness.