Healthy Eating After the Holidays: Choose long-term success over short-term results

You know the feeling. You’ve over-indulged during the holidays. Now you’re feeling sluggish. You want to clean up your eating. 

While it’s tempting to jump on-board the latest diet, cleanse, or challenge, I recommend resisting the temptation (and all those social media messages).

Why? Research shows that such all-in strategies don’t work long-term. An estimated 80% of people who lose weight using such methods regain all the weight. Or, they regain all the weight and more, ending up heavier than when they started. It’s human nature to think that you’ll be in the 20% who are successful. But the reality is that more likely than not, you’ll end up in the 80%. 

Even if you end up back at the same weight at which you started, this failed attempt has a negative impact. Research shows that it causes long-term slowing of your metabolism. Also, having worked with clients for many years, I see the psychological damage that all these so-called failures have on people. Clients feel ashamed about their failure, they feel guilty about their lack of willpower, they second-guess every food choice.  

Instead of doing short-term changes, I recommend harnessing the science of behaviour change to create long-term healthy eating habits. Habits that stick. Two great books on successful habit formation are Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear and Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything by B.J. Fogg.

What these books have in common is the idea of making small changes that you can stick to. When you’re successful with one small change, it motivates you to go on to create a second small change. And, then a third. And, a fourth. And, so on. While these individual changes may be small, they compound into creating significant healthy eating habits. 

Here’s some examples of small changes:    

• Brewing coffee at home on workdays instead of stopping at the coffee shop drive through on your way to work. That way you won’t be tempted to buy a donut along with your coffee.  
• Choosing a piece of fruit for afternoon snack instead of getting a chocolate bar at the vending machine.  
• Make a big batch meal on Sundays so that you can simply heat up leftovers on Tuesday nights (instead of ordering pizza because there’s no time to cook).

Author: Kristen Yarker, MSc, Registered Dietitian

Walmsley EFAP