Holiday Eating Guide 2010

During this time of year ridiculous holiday eating guidelines are published in just about every magazine and newspaper in the land and are featured on web sites and television news and information shows. My advice; totally ignore them.

The Thanksgiving/Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year holidays are a time when you should enjoy all the special food and drink that make their annual appearance starting today. This is not the time to start a diet – there’s never a good time to diet – to stress about food or attempt to make major changes to your lifestyle.

Rather than worry about what you’re going to eat at parties and family gatherings and fret over missing workouts, embrace the pumpkin pie, egg nog, stuffing and whatever food and drink you love and forget about the gym.

To be honest, if you’ve been lazy all year don’t compound your mistake and try to compensate by avoiding foods, dieting or starting an exercise program now.

Who wants to low-fat, low-sugar pumpkin pie? I eat about 6 pieces of pumpkin pie a year and I’m not going to waste time eating the ersatz stuff. If anyone tries to tell you that eating 4 or 5 pieces of pie – or any of the food you love – over a couple of day period is going to result in weight gain or have a negative effect on your health, tell them to shut the heck up. Also, ignore people who like to talk about how “good” they eat and have tips and rules about how to avoid eating “bad” foods.

There’s no such thing as bad food. People, on the other hand, now that’s a different story.

And about the gym. I’ll tell you, I cannot wait to take a break from working out and blow off the gym for a couple of extra days. We are like batteries. We need to be recharged regularly. When a battery runs low on juice you don’t keep using it, you replace it or recharge it. We can’t replace our batteries, so we have to recharge.

The holiday season is a great time to back off from the gym and recharge. Take it from me, I’m a professional.

So when faced with the opportunity to spoon a pile of mashed potatoes and gravy on your plate, take it. If you have to choose between your aunt’s old school real sugar, butter and milk pumpkin pie and some no-fun relative’s “healthy” option, make your aunt happy and eat 2 pieces.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and start the holiday season on the right foot.