Planning for Parties!

You are invited to a party. You can either: A) Be a hermit, B) Go, but eat nothing and have everyone keep bugging you, C) Indulge like crazy and hate yourself or D) Plan for the party and stay on track with your fat loss. I like “D”. Chances are you’ve done A, B and C many times. How is that working for you?

Maybe you were a hermit and did a great job exercising and losing weight, only to discover that when you reengaged with the world, you lost all self control and struggled to keep the weight off. You felt like you either had to abstain completely from parties or go and find yourself in binge mode as you load up on chips, alcoholic drinks, miscellaneous sausages and desserts you hadn’t even heard of prior to arriving at the party.

Maybe you were the epitome of self control and you could go to parties and not partake in the food. But it just got old because every 5 minutes someone would ask, “Did you try the bacon wrapped hot dogs?” or “Why aren’t you having any of the triple chocolate cheese cake topped with ice cream? It’s to DIE for!”

What if there was a middle ground? What if you could go to the party and eat some of the party food without falling completely off the wagon?

This is not rocket science, it simply involves planning ahead. The vast majority of the time, you know ahead of time that there is a party planned, so why not plan for the party? How often do you get invited to a party with only 5 minutes notice?

The ability to keep the body fat off while living a normal life should be all the motivation you need to start planning ahead. That and knowing that being a hermit sucks as does listening to annoying people bug you about your seeming lack of an appetite!

You know yourself better than anyone and there is a good chance you know what you are likely to want to binge on at the party. Based on the party you are being invited to you also likely have a fair amount of knowledge of the types of junk that will be available to you. Plan accordingly.

Steps to Follow:

Step 1. Eat less food overall leading up to the party.

Step 2. Focus on consuming plenty of lean protein and veggies prior to the party. Don’t go to the party starving.

Step 3. If possible, eat some protein and veggies AT the party. This may not be possible. For example, if you are at a late night cocktail party and your only option is fatty/carby hors d'oeuvre and alcohol, this is out of the question.

However, if you are at a backyard cook out, you may be able to eat a nice hunk of steak or chicken and maybe even some carrot sticks or grilled zucchini prior to indulging. Perfect! That will help take the edge off your hunger (since you will likely be hungry if you followed Step 1 and 2) and reduce the chance of completely going buck wild.

Remember we are not looking for an opportunity for you to wake up the next day in an alcohol and snack induced stupor, just a chance to be “normal” for the evening.

Step 4. Enjoy some party food!

Earlier, I had noted that you should plan according to what types of junk you may eat. I cannot possible go into specifics for every party or everyone’s preferences. But do not make it overly complicated. If you know you are prone to overdo it on snacks, then give yourself more of a buffer earlier in the day by eating very minimally and especially by avoiding carbs. Also, do you best to take the edge off your hunger by eating a few healthy items once you get to the party. If you know that protein will be non-existent at the party, make sure to have ingested some at home prior to leaving your house. If you know that alcohol is a weakness, please plan to be hydrated before even arriving at the party.

You may be asking yourself, why is he giving me a way to eat junk food? Because being healthy is a marathon not a sprint. It is a lifestyle not a 3 month quick fix. Do you honestly think you will never eat junk from now until the day you die? 99% of the population is going to eat junk food, I would venture less than 1% of the population abstains for any significant length of time. So if we are being straight forward with ourselves, we must learn to live with junk and how to handle it. Better to start confronting your predispositions than pretending they do not exist.

A little preparation goes a long way my Hermit friend!