There’s still Christmas and New Year’s to go…

No one wants to be a Grinch at Christmas or family get-together. But when it comes to dealing with the temptations of the season’s high-calorie bounty, you don’t have to feel left out, you just have to plan it out by thinking ahead.  Here are a few tips to make it through the Holidays without the weight gain.

Stop and smell the sweets

You can keep a stash of fudge around during the holidays without worrying about putting on extra pounds. How? Try these tips.

Downsize your sweets

You just got a 2-pound tin of toffee? Put some in the freezer, store four or five pieces for yourself in the cabinet, and give the rest of away.

Use a plate

Don’t nibble while standing up at a party or decorating the tree. Sit down at a table with your plate so you can focus on your food and keep track of what you’re eating.

Mind your bites

Slow down and savor the food’s smell and texture. Many people find they don’t have to eat so much with this approach.

Practice partying

A lot of people restrict what they eat before the holidays and then overeat when they hit the buffet. Instead, eat mindfully for about a week before the holiday bash so you won’t feel deprived and go on a binge.  (source)

It Just Keeps Going 

The holiday season consists of nearly two months of celebrating, with goodies appearing in homes and offices at Thanksgiving and continuing until the beginning of January.

By Christmas, most of the plans to eat less and exercise more have dwindled, and it’s easy to gain a significant amount of weight, even seven to 10 pounds. One way to monitor your intake over time: Keep track of your daily habits and set weekly goals around food intake and exercise.

Realize the Challenge

At any time of the year, losing weight and keeping it off is very difficult.  Holidays are an especially high-risk time. The idea that you should stick to a diet to lose pounds is adding stress to an already stressful season.

Set achievable goals.  Sure, you may be able to exercise four days a week and eat only 1,400 calories a day at other times, but is it really feasible during the holidays?  You’re much more likely to stick to your plan and succeed if you set your expectations more realistically, aiming to maintain your weight.

Write It Down

When you’ve figured out your goals, write them down and keep a diary of what you eat daily.  When researchers talk to people who are successful at losing weight and keeping it off, they inevitably say that writing everything down made the biggest difference. It’s that willingness to stay in touch with what you’re eating that’s important.

Even more critical is keeping track of your weight.  Often, people avoid the scale because they don’t want to come face-to-face with the news.  But if you detect a two to three-pound gain, there’s still time to get back on track before things escalate.

Buddy Up

It’s easy to underestimate the toll that the season takes — physically, psychologically, and emotionally. To avoid gaining weight, you need commitment and awareness. It’s best to do this with a group of people — even one or two friends or a close buddy — whom you can call upon to talk about eating concerns.

Identify Difficult Situations

Calorie Chat Group:  One of the best outcomes of a calorie chat group is identifying the situations that cause you to overindulged.  Try to write/log/talk more than you eat.  (source)

Weight Loss Stats

Exercise:  None for Today

Recumbent Bike Calories Burned – 400

Is Santa Claus a public health menace to our children?  With Santa’s frequent cookies and milk snacks, occasional cigars and refusal to don a helmet during extreme sports such as roof surfing and chimney jumping, could it possibly be our beloved Christmas icon “Santa Clause” should ditch his sleigh and start biking or walking to lose his jelly belly.

Due to the very high Santa awareness among children, Santa is a late adopter of evidence-based behavior change and continues to sport a rotund, sedentary image.  It has been found that a correlation between countries that celebrate Santa have and large numbers of fat children.

A researcher has determined Santa promotes a message that obesity is synonymous with cheerfulness and joviality. It is suggested that jolly old Saint Nick should swap his traditional snacks of cookies and milk in favor of sharing carrots with Rudolph.

More disturbingly, Santa’s close-up contact with sniffling, coughing kids makes him a one-man outbreak waiting to happen, with swine flu the biggest seasonal concern.  (source)

However, Santa certainly gets a good workout just getting in and out of the sleigh to visit an estimated 92 million households in a single night.

It has been calculated that if all of the households were evenly distributed across the earth and Santa had to travel 0.78 miles between each house, or 71,760,000 (71.8 million) miles.

and… Santa’s weight was approximately 250 pounds and he is walking pretty fast (in order to get his deliveries done in one night.).

Santa would burn 13 billion calories on Christmas.

but… if Santa eats two small cookies and a cup of skim milk, which is about 200 calories.

along with… snacks at each of the 92 million households, that is 18.4 billion calories.

Santa would gain 1,529,350 pounds (1.5 million) each Christmas Eve — even if he walked.

Santa would have to circle the Earth 1,183 times walking to wear off the extra calories.

That would keep Santa busy until next Christmas Eve.  (source)

Leave Santa Claus alone… he’s suppose to be fat and jolly! 

Recumbent Bike Calories Burned – 450

WOW…  another new record in one sitting!

Recumbent Bike Calories Burned – 300 

Treadmill Calories Burned – 102

The treadmill is so hard but it’s getting easier.

Good health is something we take for granted as long as we have it but as we start to age, all of the things done wrong to our bodies comes a calling with payment due in full in our later years.

I want to take a moment to make a public apology to my body for all of the excess food I’ve stuffed in it over the years.  All the deep dish extra cheese pizza and loaded fries from Checkers and McDonald’s Big Mac’s and the bags and bags and bags and bags of chips, cookies, ice cream and chocolate I’ve consumed in massive quantities over the past 50 years. BODY… PLEASE FORGIVE ME!

Did you know fast food’s biggest customers are not the poor but the middle class?  I have always believed there has been a gross misconception about the type of people who frequent fast food chains.

The media frequently portrays the mass amount of fast food patrons as the poor flocking to places like McDonald’s and Burger King… etc.

However, this couldn’t be farther from the truth according to a recent TIME Healthland article.  The article stated what I already knew, contrary to popular wisdom, eating at McDonald’s isn’t exactly cheap, costing some $28 for a family of four. Which might help explain the results of a recent study from the University of California, Davis, which found that people’s visits to fast-food joints increased along with their incomes, and that poor people were spending fewer dollars on fast food than lower-middle and middle-income Americans. Read Full Article…

       Recumbent Bike Calories Burned – 400

  I gave myself an award for this ride because

  in a single sitting, it’s the most calories I’ve

  ever burned and the longest I’ve stayed on.

I was thinking today as a direct result of my 4.2 lb weight drop about where does all of this fat on my body go as I’m losing the weight?  Now I don’t know if any of you have thought about this or if you already knew the answer to this question but I didn’t and I decided to share what I found out with my fellow weight loss bloggers.

I found an interesting article at CNN Health that explains this very process of how we discard all of the fat on our bodies as we start to slim down.  It’s a good read.  

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Thy leaves are so unchanging
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Thy leaves are so unchanging

Not only green when summers here
But also when its cold and drear
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Thy leaves are so unchanging

MmMmmmMmm

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Such pleasure do you bring me
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Such pleasure do you bring me

Oh every year this Christmas tree
Brings to us such joy and glee
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Such pleasure do you bring me

(sleep in heavenly, sleep in heavenly)

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Oh ever green unchanging
A symbol of good will and love
You’ll ever be unchanging
Each shining light each silver bell
No other light spreads cheer so well

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
You’ll ever be unchanging

“THE WORLD’S A BETTER PLACE WITH GLEE IN IT!”

     Recumbent Bike

     Calories Burned – 200

Life is hard…

losing weight is hard…

staying focused is hard…

blogging daily is damn near impossible…

but as long as we keep trying

we’ll get it done!  

   Recumbent Bike

   Total Calories Burned:  350

Now… this is my type of snowman <> extra wide load!

… an 8-year-old Cleveland elementary school student who weighs more over 200 pounds has been taken from his family and placed into foster care after social workers said his mother wasn’t doing enough to control his weight.

The Cleveland 8-year-old is considered severely obese and at risk for such diseases as diabetes and hypertension.

This case is the first officials stated of a child being put in foster care strictly for a weight-related issue in the U.S.

Lawyers for the mother stated the county overreached when authorities took the boy last week. They say the medical problems he is at risk for do not yet pose an imminent danger.

A Spokesperson stated the child was removed due to mother’s inability to reduce his weight was considered medical neglect.

Did State go too far?

Stats:

I Have A New Hobby!

Inspired by my fellow WordPress blogger simplymadlyme who knits the most beautiful scarfs.

Now…  I use to knit/crochet when I was a teenager and really haven’t thought about taking it back up until I saw all of the wonderful things Tammy @ simplymadlyme knitted and posted to her blog.

I was at Micheal’s “I LOVE MICHEAL’S”  and ended up in the yarn section and I thought to myself… I use to know how to knit and crochet.   So… I decided to purchase some yarn and a crochet hook and a pair of knitting needles.

When I got home, I looked up some how-to-videos on YouTube and I was on my way.  Here are some photos of my first crochet project in about 35 years and my effort to crochet a scarf.

It’s not finished yet… I still need to put white trim on both sides of the scarf and black/white fringes on both ends.  When it’s all done, I’ll post a photo of the completed scarf as well.

I tried both the crochet hook and the knitting needles and liked crocheting better this time around.

and the winner is…

LATINA BARBI

Congrats… a confirmation e-mail has been sent to you.  You have 48 hours from the date and time of this post to claim and select your $25 e-gift certificate.

Thank all of you for following FatGirlUSA and if you didn’t win this time and/or NOT a subscriber… join the conversation here at FatGirlUSA to be eligible for future giveaways.

How close did you come to winning?  

Below is the order in which FatGirlUSA subscribers were randomized by Random.org.

again… everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Well, my daughter gave me her “nearly new” camera today because she never uses it… and I was crying “o woe is me” and going on… and on… and on… as to how I need one.  

After her look of disgust and telling me about my “little” obsession with my blog, she said mom you can have my camera. 

I quickly grabbed it out of her hand and ran back up the stairs.  SO HAPPY!  

Here are my 1st pictures with “MY NEW CAMERA” of my babies.  It’s mine… it’s all mine I tell you!