The Gateway Holiday

Holey Moley! Halloween is officially behind us, but in its wake it has left diet desecration and blasted open the gates to bigger and better holiday addiction! Like those supposed "gateway drugs" Halloween is the first door, the little starter wedge, a small "harmless" step that leads straight onto bigger and better things: grateful gluttony, noel naughtiness, countdown calories, lavish loving, liquid luck and last but not least hoppity happiness! Halloween throws open the doors and it seems I find myself eating my way through the next 6 months just piling on the treats from the current holiday to the stash from the last holiday till Mount Guilt of Goodies is sky high! Can't toss it, shouldn't eat it, but waste not want not, right?

So what is a chunky dunker to do, especially a chunky dunker really trying to chunk less? Ban it from the house? Bar the doors and windows and hide under my bed for 6 months? Try to find "alternative" (and supposedly better" options (tofurkey anyone?) No, no and no. I think the answer lies in moderation. A treat is just that, a something special to enjoy. And my weight loss journey is not about surviving a diet, but finding my life, and my life includes holidays, fun and treats. So as what I lovingly call "holiday season," that period of time that starts with Halloween and ushers in one holiday on top of another for 6 months, comes rolling in I am going to remember that my life, the one I ultimately want, is not full of deprived misery or overindulgent suffering, but moderate enjoyment! No holiday rehab for me!