Need Help Recovering from the Holidays?

Gained weight over the holidays?
Here's how to recover and get back on track.

Did you let your guard down over the holidays?

Did you eat a few too many Christmas goodies? NON low-carb goodies?

If so, you are not alone.

For a lot of folks, food choices over the holidays were not as favorable as they could have been, and as a result, you might have experienced a gain on the scale.

An upward swing in water weight and glycogen retention tends to set the mind into motion, as it struggles to find the cause and solution for its uncomfortable situation.

The guilt that comes after gaining weight is just a thought-habit the intellect uses to take the focus off itself and place the blame onto your emotions.

In defense, the emotions begin to complain about the injustice of it all.

Thoughts switch to why dieting is unfair and how you deserved to eat that fudge or slice of fruitcake because you'd been so good for so long.

Sound crazy?

It is.

But this is the inner war the mind goes through when it doesn't want to take personal responsibility for its choices.

As a result of this little mental dance between intellect and emotions, each blaming the other for the situation, many dieters unconsciously end up blaming themselves long after the holiday has come and gone, even though you did the best you could at the time.

While a bit of reflection and understanding about why you made certain choices can be beneficial for future holiday temptations, clinging to the past and warring with yourself over what was to blame won't help you reach your weight-loss goals today.

What happened on Christmas Day is now in the past, so in this post, we're going to discuss how to recover from the holidays, so you can get your Keto or Atkins Diet back on track.

Being Flexible Isn't Bad!

The key to recovery isn't difficult once you realize what your mind is doing.

It's the darkness or ignorance of what the mind is up to that causes most of the needless suffering. How you think and what you believe can become so habitual and automatic that you actually don't see it happening.

You just feel the guilt and pain. You don't see the thinking going on that led to how you feel right now. You don't see the internal arguing. You just know that you want to make the guilt and pain go away.

So step one on the road to recovery is to let go of the idea that being flexible over the holidays is BAD. Being flexible is not wrong. In fact, there actually are no right or wrong choices when it comes to how you eat.

A diet isn't a straitjacket.

It's just a guide to help you make better food choices than what you were making before, so there's nothing to feel guilty about, even if your food choices were not the best.

Although you could have made different choices, the idea behind all of this low-carb dieting business isn't perfection.

Honestly . . . it's not.

And it's not about never ever having something you enjoy.

It's painful to be the oddball at a family function or social situation.

It's painful to feel left out and deprived.

Emotionally and mentally, you very well might have needed to make the choice that you did right then in order to be able to find the strength to continue your low-carb journey.

Don't Beat Yourself Up

Instead of sitting around beating yourself up for past mistakes, wrap your mind around the idea that low carb is about moving forward.

It's about growing.

It's about learning to make the best choice at the time and evolving into an eating style that can allow you to be the weight you want to be.

To make that happen, there are no rules, except your own.

So what's past is past. What's done is done. Own up to what you did, of course.

Take personal responsibility for the consequences that you are going through right now, but choose to live in the present.

You did what you did, so where do you go from here?

Focus on Now, Not Then

The most important thing you can do for yourself right now is to stop thinking and talking about what you did over the Christmas holidays.

Think and talk about what you're going to do right now, in order to move forward from here.

Maybe that's to go back onto Atkins Induction.

Maybe that involves getting into ketosis as fast as possible.

And maybe, it's just to accept that you gained 5 pounds over the holidays, and that it might take you 2 to 4 weeks to get back to where you were.

Why put yourself through the suffering that comes from guilt if it's not necessary?

The lessons you're learning are those you're going to need to maintain your weight once you reach goal, so they are extremely important to go through right now. Treat each and every day as a learning experience, a growing experience, because that's exactly what it is.

You are retraining your mind, emotions, and spirit to live differently than you were living before.

And that takes practice.

Low carb is a lifestyle, not just another weight-loss diet, so it takes lots of practice to learn how to live this way.

Falling down and skinning your knee goes with the territory.

Out of all of the choices that I have made in my life, I have learned the most from those that appeared to be mistakes.

Besides, most of the weight gain probably isn't fat.

It's most likely glycogen storage and water, especially if you only had a one-day splurge. If you've been relaxing your diet for a longer period, that's fine too. The weight will come back off quickly enough as soon as you get back on plan.

It Doesn't Matter if You Got Kicked Out of Ketosis

If you got kicked out of Ketosis -- so what?

Ketosis isn't magic.

It's just a by-product of fat metabolism.

Ketosis is the body's backup system to feed the brain when glucose isn't available -- and right now, if you put on a little bit of glycogen weight, your brain does have fuel.

Correcting that will only take a few hours if you're already fat adapted. If not, then it will just take a little bit longer.

Even if you completely refilled your glycogen stores, it will take less than 24 hours to get back into ketosis.

What takes longer is to see ketones spilling over into the urine, and by the time that happens, ketosis is well underway.

You go back to fat burning just as soon as your glycogen stores get about half empty, so there is nothing to get upset about. In fact, this is the whole purpose of becoming fat adapted.

Being fat adapted allows you to have a higher carb day once in a while without it negatively affecting your low-carb diet. If fat adapted, the body prefers burning fats, so it won't resist switching back and in a very short period of time, you'll be back on your way toward your goal.

Making low carb your lifestyle, with your own perks and tweaks, is what makes your plan -- YOUR PLAN.

Accept responsibility for what you did, own up to the consequences you're experiencing right now, and then move on . . .

You'll be glad you did.