{"id":7939,"date":"2010-11-22T09:13:26","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T17:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=7939"},"modified":"2010-11-22T09:13:26","modified_gmt":"2010-11-22T17:13:26","slug":"my-first-holiday-season-as-a-loser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=7939","title":{"rendered":"My First Holiday Season as a Loser"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I started trying to lose weight it was August of 2006. I made great strides by the time the winter season came around. I’d lost about 25 pounds. I faced my first challenge in my weight loss: The Holiday Season.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

6 Months Before Christmas 2006<\/p><\/div>\n

My whole family gets together for a Christmas party every December. I look forward to it every year. We’re all pretty close and have a great time. My uncle\u00a0 is skilled on the grill and will BBQ a whole lamb, pig, or do brisket:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There was one year where they even did a pig in the traditional Hawaiian way under the ground.\u00a0One of my cousins picked up a sushi platter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Another aunt and uncle who live on the Washington Peninsula brought freshly caught crab.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>All this in addition to the typical holiday eats: salad, pasta salad, dips, veggie platters, fruit salad, jello, lots and lots of Christmas cookies….<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Cake, brownies, pudding…You name it, my family brings it! And did I mention that they are all exceptional cooks? (Somehow I didn’t get that gene.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Did I mention the alcohol? My cousin Greg’s specialty is Gregnog. Powerful stuff!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Buffet Challenge terrified me. I had no idea what to do. I made a veggie platter and brought that…I knew I could at least eat that!<\/p>\n

I was filled with anxiety <\/span>about overeating. During August of 2006 I weighed in at 250 pounds. By the family Christmas party at the beginning of December I weighed 229 pounds–a loss of 21 pounds<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I was doing so well with my weight loss and everyone noticed and commented. That inspired me to be picky. I didn’t deny myself anything I wanted at that party but I also didn’t go nuts eating everything.<\/p>\n

Having just a taste of certain things to see if I liked them worked well. If I didn’t like it, I stopped eating it and tried something else. It worked. I didn’t fill up on “worthless” snacks. I chose things I loved and ate them in moderation.<\/p>\n

When the desserts were brought out, I knew I was REALLY being tempted. Luckily I’d eaten a lot of the other food and didn’t really have room for the desserts. I ate one or two bites of a few things and that was it. I also drank only diet coke or water the entire day. Even though I wanted some Gregnog or wine, I resisted. I wanted to EAT my calories more than drink them. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

I did well over that holiday season. I tried to resist the temptation as much as I could and while I didn’t lose much during the holidays, I was able to maintain the loss that I’d accomplished.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: How do you deal with holiday parties? What are your favorite foods that you indulge in?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I started trying to lose weight it was August of 2006. I made great strides by the time the winter season came around. I’d lost about 25 pounds. I faced my first challenge in my weight loss: The Holiday Season. My whole family gets together for a Christmas party every December. I look forward […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,311,68,1880,72,1193,315,87,91,92,104,1683,1810,297,298],"tags":[1915,1811,1914,8662,1916,8802,8758],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7939"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9335,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7939\/revisions\/9335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}