Healthful hints: how to enjoy a truly happy holiday season

Better Nutrition, Dec, 2004 by Marilu Henner

Keep Up Your Exercise

We talked about exercise last month. But it's so important I need to mention it again. Exercise can make or break your holiday. It controls your weight by burning fat. It keeps you sane by reducing your stress and improving your mood. It even reduces pain by raising your endorphin levels. It is truly the world's greatest psychoactive drag.

Try to exercise daily, finding pockets of time throughout your day. This can be challenging, but certainly not impossible. And besides, if you can't make time for exercise, you may be forced to make time for stress and sickness. Dress for the mall as you would dress for the gym, and do frequent power walks.

Take Time for Yourself

And finally, the one holiday Factor that can unravel anyone's best-laid health plans--family! Your family is more demanding of your time than ever this month, whether it's your kids at a school function, your husband for an office party or your mother counting on your help. Don't let them take control! Make sure you make time for yourself.

And then there's a different kind of family pressure--seeing those relatives you don't see the rest of the year. You know, the ones that trigger old family relationship patterns. Some relatives can push emotional buttons that reduce you right back to the insecure kid you were in junior high, perhaps when your bad eating habits stinted in the first place. Maybe you've always been someone who conquered your feelings with food. Maybe you were the one who never exercised, but now you do. Are you going to slip back and be the sedentary person everyone expects, or are you going to stick up for yourself? Are you going to eat an unhealthful dish just to make Mom or Grandma happy? Are you going to be so empathetic that you absorb everyone else's problems? Are you the type that becomes the confidante for someone else's bad time?

It's possible to make strides in your health all year long, and then go home for the holidays and blow it. If you find yourself being the little kid who doesn't want to make waves, learn how to protect yourself. Don't go down the sinkhole with anyone. If you're once again the human doormat, learn to say NO. And most of all, if your inner brat tries to take over your plans for a healthful holiday, give that brat a time-out!

Try to break your pattern of self-sacrifice and self-sabotage, and stay on the road to good health. Make that your gift to yourself this year!

Marilu Henner is a well-known actress, lecturer and NY Times best-selling author of Marilu Henner's Total Health Makeover, The 30-Day Total Health Makeover, I Refuse to Raise a Brat, Healthy Life Kitchen, Healthy Kids, Healthy Holidays, and Party Hearty. To find out more about her program, check out her Web site at www.marilu.com.