Cookies and Salad Diet

The holiday season sometimes requires creative eating plans. Normal diet willpower just isn't good enough. Not with the vast array of tempting goodies awaiting you at every turn.

Heavy boxes of assorted chocolates, Christmas cookies by the dozen, and buttery pastries all calling "eat me!"

Avoiding eating the goodies altogether doesn't work, at least not for me. Eventually I'm going to give in and eat something and then I'm going to feel bad, and who wants to feel bad at Christmastime? A better solution is to have some goodies and adjust the rest of my eating to compensate.

Thus the birth of the Cookies and Salad diet.

I have to say this was an inspired concept. Cookies for breakfast, salad for lunch, stick to my diet the rest of the day. I don't know why I didn't think of this years ago. What agony I could have avoided with this simple formula.

Granted, this diet plan may not work long term. I find that eating cookies (or chocolate, or cake, or pie…) tends to inspire me to eat more cookies, which only leads me back to Lumpy Land. But for the two weeks before Christmas when cookies are everywhere you go, it's a nice alternative.

And guess what? It worked! Against all odds I lost 1.6 pounds this week. A friend at work called it a Christmas miracle. I don't think I would go that far, but maybe when I make it my plan to cheat on the diet, I eat better all around and am less likely to binge.

And if there was a bit of grace involved, I'm truly thankful.

Happy Thought: I've lost all the weight I gained back during my diet hiatus!

Claire