It happens to all of us, especially over holiday periods. Even if we had the best intentions to keep our portion sizes as normal or our alcohol consumption to one glass we all give in to temptation from time to time. Weather it’s having second helpings of Nan’s sherry loaded trifle or one too many glasses of Uncle John’s expensive champagne it’s not something that you can’t recover from.
Look at it like this, you have had your day ofindulgence, now get over it!!! Don’t wallow in your guilt, throw your arms up inthe air and give up. Just get back on track with your food at the next meal. Don’t let one day of overeating lead to 2 days, then one week, because before you know it a month has passed and you have fallen back into bad habits of over eating and your jeans are slightly tighter than before…..
Now would be a good time to start drinking lots of water, aim to drink anywhere between 1.5L to 2L a day. This will help to flush out excess sodium in your body which can cause fluid retention, it will also help rehydrate your body if alcohol was your guilty pleasure. Drinking water also gives the stomach a feeling of fullness and will stop you from eating more.
Another thing people tend to do out of guilt the day after overeating, is to starve themselves. Not a good move. This will actually slow down your metabolism and after not eating all day you will indeed overeat again when the hunger pains kick in. Not a real healthy way to go. I would suggest getting back into your normal eating pattern as soon as possible, this will enable your body to get back to processing the amount of
food it is used to. Have lots of “healthy” foods available in your fridge and pantry.
Lastly I would suggest to get moving. I know it may be hard at first to get the motivation to get up and exercise, but once you do you will feel sooo much better. It is a good idea to do some type of physical activity every day. It can be as simple as going on a 15 minute brisk walk, take the dog, call a friend and have some company while
you walk, whatever it takes just get moving. Physiologically, this keeps your
metabolism up, helps to control your appetite, and energizes you! Mentally, exercise increases your mental freshness for hours, and it keeps you in a “healthy” frame of mind. Commit to doing at least 15 minutes every day.
You can recover from overeating by following a few simple rules. Everybody slips up and there is no reason to give up when we do. We need to focus on how to get ourselves back on the right track and begin to look at ways we can prevent this from happening again. Let’s face it, there are going to be many more occasions when we will be faced with temptation, so put your “recovery from overeating” plan in place so you know what to do next time.
