Use This One Rule To Not Overeat This Christmas (Or Any Holiday)
By: Marthinus Van Rhyn
Tags: Eating, Christmas, Food And Drink, Tips And Tricks, Holidays

I get it. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, the one time you can really go ham (literally) and just eat everything, in large quantities, across multiple helpings and not feel guilty about it.

Everybody always picks up a bit of weight over the December holidays and that’s OK. You are going to eat more food, especially calorie-dense food, than usual and not taking advantage of the opportunity to do so would be silly. However, if you’re anything like me, you really struggle to cope with the food baby that is conceived on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and the intense food hangover you have to deal with on Boxing Day. Therefore, I’ve developed a helpful culinary contraceptive to prevent your own little baby Jesus being born, which you can apply this Christmas and pretty much any other holiday throughout the year.

Of course this is not always 100% effective, as with traditional contraceptives. But, unlike traditional contraceptives, the effectiveness of this one is totally up to your mental preparation and willpower. It sounds intense, but it’s a very simple technique.

The Rule of One

“That’s it?!” I hear you think, but bear with me here. The Rule of One is an unbreakable rule that you can set up for yourself which puts a limit on the amount of food you are allowed to consume during a single sitting. To keep it simple, you can apply it in the following three ways:

Only one decent spoonful of every food Only one helping of food (no seconds, or thirds… or fourth or fifths, you get the idea) Only one helping of one type of dessert

1. One Spoonful

This might sound harsh, but if you think of the shear amount of food that we prepare for Christmas, it’s really not that bad. If you commit to only dishing one decent-sized spoonful of every food, then you’ll actually have enough room on your plate for all of it. Get one, good helping and that’s it, no more. And no going back for more, which brings me to…

2. One Helping

That’s right. No seconds. This is something that I actually started applying waaay back when I lost weight the first time, and it really helps. Make sure that your fist helping is a good, decent size to be enjoyable (without overdoing it) and, no matter how delicious everything is, do not go back for seconds.

What really helps with the Rule of One is “mindful eating”. Really experiencing your food, the taste, the texture, helps prevent you from gobbling everything down like a little piggy. I am by no means suggesting sitting at the Christmas dinner table with your eyes closed, making sensual mouth noises and sighing pleasurably at the taste of your turkey. We don’t want to scar our little nieces and nephews and be ostracised by our own family. It simply means taking the time to have a full sensory experience with the food and commenting on it with your family members (which I’m sure everybody does anyway). Take time, sit back, take a sip of your wine or eggnog and enjoy the privilege of being able to spend some time with family and/or friends. Once your plate is done, you won’t even want seconds.

3. One Dessert

I know, it’s blasphemy, but the rule obviously applies to dessert as well. Choose your favourite dessert and have one healthy helping. There will be enough leftovers for you to try something else later. Cap yourself at this sitting and avoid that food baby, along with indigestion and heart burn.

This doesn’t apply to your holiday drinks as well (I’m not a total monster). In fact, the drinks will help fill you up. You might want to have some water in-between though, just to help you to not overdo the drinks either. I talk about “water chasers” in this post.

The Rule of One is a great way of controlling the amount of food you consume over the holidays and preventing any unwanted food babies. You can apply it during all the holidays throughout the year, and even as a general rule of thumb when you dine with friends and family. I’ll talk more about the other applications of The Rule of One in a future post. For now, go forth and be merry!