God rest ye merry dieters, let not this season bring your weight loss dismay.

Season’s greetings, Mia Bella Lotta Elves!  It’s that time of year when the herpes of crafts, glitter, explodes in your home along with yards and yards of holly, wrapping paper, and ribbon!

This seasons always makes me feel all toasty inside.  I’ll deny this if ever asked, but I still have hope, deep down inside of me, that Santa is still a real person who only works a seasonal job.  This hope brings be great joy.  The Danish and Norwegian have a word for this feeling, “hygge.”  There is no literal translation in the English language, but I found a pretty good explanation on the Googles of what exactly hygge is, “a mood of coziness and comfortable conviviality with feelings of wellness and contentment.”  Profound and deep- thats me in a nutshell.  Full disclosure, it took me 3 tries to spell “profound.”

Two years ago, Kevin and I spent Christmas and New Years in Copenhagen much to our parents dismay.  I believe the term “heathens” was thrown around a lot that year leading up to our departure.  The feeling you get when you are in Copenhagen during Christmas just screams HYGGE!  Maybe its the California girl in me, but there is something about that chill in the air, being bundled up, the twinkling lights, the colors of Copenhagen, and the endless supplies of glogg that just speaks to me.  What is glogg you may be asking?  Glogg is the warm, long island iced tea of Scandinavia.  More specifically, its mulled wine mixed with brandy and some accoutrements that have also been soaking in brandy for hours/days.  It will put you on your ass faster than you can say your name. One or two of these and you are in full hygge-mood.

The reason I bring up this hygge feeling is because of what is represents- the feeling of wellness and contentment.  Is it only me or do we all feel that as soon as December 1st comes around we get a false sense of security and contentment of where we are in our weight loss fight?  This results in us, once again, coming up with an excuse to throw out all the hard work we’ve put in training ourselves to break bad habits.   I mean, thank GOD swimsuit season is exactly 6 months away so you have time to maybe get back to where you started when you decided to take on this weight loss fight, right?  No. Not right. Wrong.

We have to break this self sabotaging habit of ours.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  So Spring comes around and we see that Summer is right around the corner, meaning time to step up the diet and exercise.  So we work and work and work until we are physically and mentally stressed for months to lose 5-10LBs.  Then December 1st screams at us and we say fuck it.  Rinse and repeat.  Sorry for the sailor talk, but we are all adults here. and I need the f word for dramatic purposes.  When ABC calls to make this blog into a television series, I’ll clean it up.  Until then, its warranted.

I have to give myself a little props this week.  I made it through the Turkey Day Food Extravaganza only gaining about .8LBs.  I even took a day off of working out this week because I was just so tired and needed a Laura Day on the Couch, like the good ol’ days.  The only difference was this time it didn’t end with a to-go container of my favorite delivery pasta from Defina on my chest.  Instead that pasta was replaced with my dog, Grace.  Grace and I got deep into the Netflix series “Making of a Murderer, Part II” and it was worth every relaxing second.

OK, so I passed Midterm Exam, but how will I fare with the final exam, Christmas?

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is going to be tough.   This is a holiday literally built around cookies, and pies, and sugar plums, and candy canes, and awesome holiday drinks like glogg… OH MY! What is a girl who literally loves every single one of those things to do?  Time to make a plan to plan.

Here is my November 30th, plan of attack for the month of December.  I am going to keep on, business as usual, with my workouts and my hybrid of a diet (100oz of water, don’t eat carbs after lunch, keep wine down to a minimum, etc.).  I am also going to try and limit my social events, but on the days when the unavoidable family activities occur, I will work that much harder with my workouts and my nutrition.

Doing a little self exploration I looked back at my weight tracking from the last couple of years to see how I have fared in this Christmas Story.  I’ve got to give myself another high-five.  I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping it tight during the Christmas season.   In 2016, I must have been some medical phenomenon because I actually lost 1.5LBs between early December 2016 and early January 2017.  In 2017, I only gained 3LBs.

That was the Laura of Christmas Past and a lot has changed.  Spoiler alert, for a future post I am working on, but test results have come back and, to make a long story short, my body hates me.  OK maybe thats a tad bit dramatic, but I believe you should come to expect that exaggeration from me by now.  Since October of 2017 I have overwhelmed myself both socially and professionally so much that my body, physically, is maxed out.  It threw in the towel.  Raised the white flag.  Result?  Until I can figure out how to handle stress better I will be on an uphill battle trying to lose weight.  If there is one theme you can take from this blog its that I don’t give up easily.  Challenge accepted.

Mia Bella Lotta’s Call to Action: Make a plan for December today.  Today is the last day of November.  Officially tomorrow you can cry glitter tears of happiness and feel all the hygge feels, but first make sure you make a commitment to yourself this Christmas season.   I keep reminding myself of how awful it felt to step on that scale last August, and 5LBs is easy to gain over the Holidays. Then I’d be back to step one.  No, I refuse.

So what is your motivation going to be?  What is your “August Gut Punch” feeling?  The holidays are a time to be around family and friends, so I don’t expect you to be an unsocial Grinch.  Thats why if you attack this season with a plan and a commitment, you are more than likely to come out better than you usually do.  Don’t think I’m right? Prove yourself wrong.

WEIGH IN/MEASUREMENTS: 158 LBS, Chest 36.5, Under Boob 30, Belly Button 32, Below Hips 38.25, Largest Part of Butt 41.5.

SONG OF THE WEEK: “My Grown Up Christmas List” by Amy Grant