Would you like to come to this place, spend the evening at that place, have a mince pie, sausage roll, egg nog, mulled wine, taste my world-beating Christmas cake\u2026?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And you\u2019ll go because you can\u2019t resist. You\u2019ll feast like you\u2019ll never see another meal, and you\u2019ll consume frightening amounts of festive tipples because otherwise you\u2019ll be missing out on all the fun, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FOMO \u2013 shorthand for \u2018fear of missing out\u2019 \u2013 is the acute and often unjustified belief that everyone is having way more fun than you. And it reaches its annual high any day now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Small wonder. Apparently, the British cram 44% more social occasions into December than any other month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But FOMO really is not your friend this month (or indeed any month) \u2013 especially if you want to maintain your weight over the holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s take a look at how that festive FOMO usually pans out\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019re committed to healthy eating at Christmas, and you go to one buffet parties or events. The food looks delicious, but you are watching your weight, so your deprived mouth can only water. There\u2019s a very subtle fear that you are never going to be able to have any of these delicious treats ever again. The fear of missing out activates your survival instinct to consume everything and anything. And so you go on a binge, and your healthy eating plans are obliterated. The self-recriminations start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s the thing you need to know about FOMO: We are culturally programmed to over-value losses and under-value gains, so it\u2019s really not your fault. So we put more importance on the food we may be missing out on, and less on our goals and wellbeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The big question, of course, is what are you are you really missing out on? Nothing. Maybe some sweet or high-carb treats, some booze filled evenings and such. But eating and drinking these have a flipside: blood sugar imbalance and energy crashes, poor sleep, almost certain weight gain (if you consume in excess) \u2013 and that\u2019s without mentioning the negative self-talk for having over-indulged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s another thing about this festive FOMO and it\u2019s that it has you giving up taking responsibility for your actions around food and alcohol<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are several things going on when it comes to food. Your fear of \u2018missing out\u2019 on that delicious desert is the first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But also refusing food (though it should be a basic human right) is mired in emotional meaning both for you and for the host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The answer is not to find more and more creative ways to say no. If you have to own up to eating healthily around this time or being gluten or dairy free, this seems to compound the original offence of not wanting to eat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Can you get that it doesn\u2019t mean anything if you don\u2019t want to stuff yourself to the gunnels with sausage rolls and mince pies? It doesn\u2019t mean anything about your<\/p>\n\n\n\n
relationship with food, or how you feel about the host. You just don\u2019t want the sausage rolls!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your action plan is this:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Often party-goers who are cautious about their alcohol consumption are viewed with suspicion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want to have a few glasses of wine, have a few glasses of wine. But make that decision inside of what you know to be your social schedule over the entire Christmas period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How does the amount of socialising stack up against your health goals?<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be clear, you absolutely can honour all your social commitments but, in order not to find yourself tempted by the usual crash diet in January, hear this: it IS possible to go out, have fun, eat well and be \u2018healthy\u2019. You just choose it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you cut back on the amount you are drinking at social gatherings \u2013 even choosing not to drink at some events at all \u2013 you can feel the improvements almost immediately. On those nights that you don\u2019t drink at all, you\u2019ll sleep better, wake feeling more refreshed, you\u2019ll have much more energy, and your mood will be better. The impact on your waistline will be positive, too \u2013 alcohol is a big contributor to belly fat and is brimming with unnecessary calories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are a few suggestions for cutting down \u2013 if that\u2019s what you choose to do.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Would you like to come to this place, spend the evening at that place, have a mince pie, sausage roll, egg nog, mulled wine, taste my world-beating Christmas cake\u2026? And you\u2019ll go because you can\u2019t resist. You\u2019ll feast like you\u2019ll never see another meal, and you\u2019ll consume frightening amounts of festive tipples because otherwise you\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-1074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-2-5-minutes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aspiranthealth.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aspiranthealth.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aspiranthealth.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aspiranthealth.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aspiranthealth.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aspiranthealth.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aspiranthealth.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aspiranthealth.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aspiranthealth.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aspiranthealth.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
FIX YOUR FOMO AROUND ALCOHOL<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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