Not sure how to stick to your healthy eating plans this weekend?

The UK will see its first Coronation in 70 years later today, and we’ve been given an extra Bank Holiday on Monday to mark the occasion.

Which is great in some ways, but I’ve been having conversations with clients this week about how to approach the long weekend eating-wise.

The people who’ve raised the question, “How can I get through the Coronation weekend without gaining pounds?” are feeling anxious because they have only just got back on track after Easter (just a month ago) and last weekend being Early May Bank Holiday.

I’m so pleased to have been asked about this as it’s an important issue, whether or not a monarch is getting crowned where you live.

Tactics and Tools for holiday weekends

What might help you to deal with being out of your usual routine:

• Plan how to balance your overall eating

The problem with holiday weekends is when we have the treats on top of our normal food intake. We continue with our regular three meals a day and add the nibbles and party food on top. Here’s the clue to enjoying the special foods and drinks without gaining weight – it’s called “compensation”.

Think a bit in advance about where the extra food is likely to be offered. Are you expected at a street party where the food will be ready mid-afternoon, nowhere near your usual mealtime? Or will there be meals with more courses and choices than you are used to?

Unusual eating times can be tricky because our internal body clocks are powerful drivers for eating, and we’ll want to eat when we usually do. The simplest way may be to plan a small snack at your usual mealtime to tide you over, so you can be definitely hungry by the time of the celebratory meal, and you’ll enjoy it all the more.

If you have the opportunity to adjust other meal sizes to compensate for larger ones, that will help too. These simple ways of compensating for larger amounts of food can help keep you on track right through the weekend without scrimping on enjoyment.

• Use the Appetite Pendulum

It’s tempting to keep eating when the food is delicious, but this may have a lot to do with why your eating gets a bit out of hand. Because of the way our taste perception works, the first part of a meal tastes better than the rest. Being able to stop eating when you’re just full means you’ve had the greatest pleasure-per-calorie from the food, and will allow you to get hungry by the next meal.

I’ve been accused before now of banging on too much about how fabulous food tastes when you are hungry compared with when you’re not. But it does, and I’m not going to stop banging on about it because it’s such a joyful and life-enhancing discovery for anyone who (like me) has previously avoided letting themselves get hungry between meals.

Here’s the Appetite Pendulum, my simple scale to help you tune in to what your gut is telling you. Whilst eating, you can tune in and notice the changing sensations of increasing fullness. If you can stop at +3 (just full), you’ll feel better later and it will help keep you on track.

 

 

• Quality, taste and pleasure over quantity

When you savour what you eat, you get more pleasure from each mouthful, and it will be easier to gauge when you’ve had just enough.

Appetite Retraining is about getting more pleasure from food than you had before, and choosing to eat what you love and really savouring is a part of that.

• The calorie-free pleasure of anticipation and remembering

So much pleasure in life comes from the past and the future when we remember special times and look forward to lovely things ahead.

This works in the short term – enjoying the prospect of seeing friends later today – or much longer term, like when you ask an older relative about past holidays. You may be with someone who remembers other royal events fondly, even perhaps someone who can recall the last Coronation! Sharing stories of past times, and sharing future dreams can be a lovely bonding experience.

• Focusing on other enjoyable things apart from eating

It can be helpful to remember, if there’s a lot of focus on food, that there are other things you can really enjoy over the holiday weekend. Maybe immersing yourself in a book or watching a favourite film, or settling in to watch the all-day TV coverage of the Coronation.

• Visualisation can really support you sticking to your plans

Using future imagery is known to be effective in helping us stick to our goals. When we are in the moment of being tempted to eat, and we’re not hungry, connecting with our future goal helps us delay our gratification.

Here’s a mini-exercise using Functional Imagery Training techniques to help you with this. This will take you about 20 minutes to do and then you can use the goal image whenever you’re at a tricky choice-point around food…

First, imagine what will happen if you eat in a way that you know will leave you feeling regretful by next weekend.

Close your eyes and go inside for a moment.

Think back to a previous weekend where you regretted how you’d eaten, the week after.

Recall what you thought and felt.

Picture this happening again after this coming weekend and imagine a particular scene next weekend (eg sitting in your kitchen with a cup of tea) when you’ll be feeling that regret.

Step into that future scene and look around at what you can see

Notice all the sounds you can hear

Breathe in and notice what you can smell

Notice what you are feeling and thinking in this future scene

OK, now come back to the present and notice particularly what that felt like and what thoughts were running through your head. Now we’re going to move on to a different outcome.

 

Next, imagine what will happen if you stick to your goals around eating and health this weekend.

Go back into imagery mode – close your eyes and go inside

Imagine the particular scene next weekend, when you’ll most feel the benefits of having stuck to your eating plan this weekend

Step into that future scene and look around at what you can see

Notice all the sounds you can hear

Breathe in and notice what you can smell

Notice what you are feeling and thinking in this future scene

OK, come back to the present and notice what that felt like and how it compares with the previous imagery. Notice the contrast between the two scenes in terms of how you feel and what thoughts are going through your mind. 

I guess it felt good and maybe a bit inspiring to really step into that positive future scene. We can call this future success scene your Goal Image.

Now you’ve done the ground work of creating a goal image, whenever you’re faced with a choice between eating in line with your health goals or not, bring your goal image vividly to mind. That will help you connect with why you might prefer to take the harder of the two options and make it easier to do just that.

• Congratulate yourself

On Tuesday morning, after the weekend is past, take a moment to congratulate yourself. Notice what it tells you about yourself that you managed the weekend as you did.

Notice any points for future learning where maybe you’d have preferred to do things differently, and give yourself credit for the things that went well.