Recovering from Holiday Diet Mayhem

A quick scan of various diabetes support boards shows that people have either stopped posting completely, or they're posting messages along the lines of, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!"

Yup. It's holiday time again.

Personally, I believe it is dangerous to be too perfect with any diet, because when people are utterly perfect, and never eat a single uncounted gram of carbohydrate, when they eventually DO crash off their diet plan, they tend to go off massively and end up harming their health and their weight. One day off plan won't do terrible things to your health, nor, for that matter, three days But if you're still eating your head off three weeks after Christmas, yes. You are in a world of hurt.

It's long been my belief that if you go off plan every so often you will learn how to get back on track, so you'll be more likely to handle times of excess like the holidays when temptations and the weight of family traditions make it extremely difficult to avoid diabetes-related food craziness.

There isn't any way around it. Unless you are one of those lucky people who have no emotional issues around food and could live happily on Purina People Chow, at times like Christmas, you either don't eat the special foods that have decades worth of warm associations and end up feeling like the Little Match Girl, standing in the cold, peering through the window at the more fortunate people enjoying the glorious family feast. Or you pig out and end up feeling like crap, because your body can't handle the carb-load and then spend the next week hiding from your diabetic friends out of embarrassment--hence the quietness on the diabetes discussion boards.

Fortunately, the official Diet Season starts January 2, and we can all stop thinking about party food until the Diet Season's Official End, which is of course, Super Bowl Sunday. Don't you love the irony of the way the supermarkets fill the "seasonal" shelves with diet food January 2, and then, 3 weeks later, replace them with Cheese filled Cheese Doodles and nacho sauce?

Meanwhile, for those of you who are relatively new to cutting back on carbohydrates, who did over do it on Christmas, here's a page I put together some years ago which helps you understand some of the physiological effects that can make you very hungry and feeling crazy when you try to get back to good dietary control. If you find yourself in a non-stop binge, reading this page may help you get back on track.

Crashing Off Your Low Carb Diet

Me, I'm going on a diet next week, until, of course, Super Bowl Sunday.