Overindulgence just for one day

Why is it over the Christmas period apparently its ok to eat food, snacks, drink tons of alcohol, and generally put on your own body weight in food again? Essentially, its one day. Essentially its just like having a Sunday roast. So why do we obsess over all the additional stuff?

Don’t get me wrong, I do it too. I love all the special foods that they only seem to bring out at Christmas. I could eat a whole plate of pigs in blankets. I can shovel food in my face until the point of feeling physically sick at the thought of another “wafer thin mint” (see Monty Python sketch in The Meaning of Liff).

I don’t tend to eat breakfast so Christmas morning was just a cup of coffee for me. We had to go ringing so wouldn’t have had time for much else anyway. When we got home, we had more coffee and 2 mince pies (seemingly extra large ones from the bakery stall in town) whilst we were on the family Skype. We had a 3 bird roast, enough to fed 4, and all the trimmings for lunch. We had half the meat for Christmas day and will have the other half for Sunday lunch. That was washed down with a bottle of Moet & Chandon that we’ve had for a while. Then followed by an epic chocolate orange cheesecake that I’d made. The recipe said that it made 12 servings. We’ve cut it into 6!

We have hampers of food that family members have been generous to send, and chocolates etc that people have given as gifts. I couldn’t even look at it. After such a lunch, I couldn’t eat again. I stuck to water for the rest of the day, and only at about 9pm did I have another mince pie (they need to be eaten before they go stale). Couldn’t possibly eat another thing.

I weigh myself every day. I know you’re not supposed to so that, but it helps keep me focused from day to day. On Christmas morning I had already put on 4lb in the week due to additional snacking and the Christmas Eve curry we’d eaten the night before. On Boxing Day the scales of doom said that I’d actually lost 1lb since Christmas morning.

I’m not going to obsess about going on a diet just yet as there’s too much food in the house to consume yet. But once the overindulgence is done it’ll be time to refocus, and be more considerate about those who were unable to have a hot Christmas day meal.