Only the morning after matteres

One gluttonous day down, one to go.

Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is yet to come.

Did you overeat on Thursday? Are you feeling guilty now? Ashamed? Swearing that you won't eat anything for a week to make up for your shameful lack of willpower?

Well, don't.

What you do on Thanksgiving, or on Christmas - food wise - doesn't matter.

What you do the day afterward matters.

Remember that every day is a learning process - especially if you've just begun your weight loss program - and you need to learn how you react to certain stimuli.

So, what happened yesterday? Was your goal to just eat small portions of everything, and did you succeed? Very good. Something to be proud of.

Was your goal to eat small portions...but then did you just say, to heck with it and start gong back for seconds and thirds?

If you did, you learned something... that you can't have so much food around and be able to resist it. So ... don't try.

Again, the day after is what's key. Don't over-react because of over-eating yesterday, if you did indeed do so. First off, hopefully you were able to split left-overs amongst your family, so that you don't have a lot of food left in your kitchen for you to snack on for the next few days.

Second, accept the fact that you may have slowed down the process of losing weight by a couple of days. Not a big deal. You've got a month to get back into "weight loss mode" and lose a couple of pounds, before Christmas comes.

Then, you're faced with the same decision - stint yourself, or don't stint yourself.

And be aware that after Christmas, you've got a whole year to lose 52 pounds (at most).

In other words, you've got time.

So don't let the fact that you're going to be inundated with warnings about gaining weight over the next month or so, from people who just try to take the pleasure out of life!

Just continue to keep your journal, continue to learn how you react, cravings-wise, to certain foods, certain advertisements, as the month goes on.

Knowledge is power. By the end of December, you'll know all you need to know to be successful next year, from the first day of Jan until the end of December.

A new year of opportunity is almost upon us. Let's go out and enjoy it.,