Weigh-In Day

So, Christmas is officially over, and so are both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. You’ve slept off any hangover you may have had, relaxed, and now you’re ready to face the new year ahead of you and all of the challenges and opportunities it will bring.

Unfortunately, due to the amount of food and drink consumed during the holiday season, chances are you may have gained a bit of weight during the holidays.

Weigh-In Day is a great time to set your first new year goal: start eating better and exercising more regularly so you can not only shed that weight but improve your overall health. After all, what could be more important than your health?

History of Weigh-In Day

Weigh-In Day has likely existed as long as the habit of overeating during the holidays has—in short, a very long time indeed. The traditional Christmas feast we know today, consisting of roast turkey or another type of roast meat, potatoes and Christmas cake dates back to medieval England.

King Henry VIII was the first British monarch known to have had a roast turkey for Christmas dinner, and the tradition spread quickly from then onward. English poet and farmer Thomas Tusser noted that by 1573, roast turkey was a staple of the Christmas feast.

Since that time, holiday dishes have gotten ever more rich and plentiful, and the amount of calories from fat and sugar people tend to consume during this time has gone through the roof. Weigh-In Day has been created as a way of motivating people to fix the damage done during this period, and what could be more motivating than having the courage to stand on a scale and face reality?

How to Celebrate Weigh-In Day

As mentioned before, the first thing you have to do is take a deep breath, close your eyes and get on your scale and then slowly open them…it’s not that bad, is it? Now it’s time to get to work!

Remember: dieting is not about eating apples and apples alone for weeks on end while exercising until you literally drop, exhausted. Doing things like this will not only damage your body by depriving it of the protein, vitamins, etc. that your body needs, but it will also unavoidably cause a yo-yo effect, leaving you weighing more than you did at the beginning of the ordeal and feeling even more miserable as well.

Dieting is not only about losing weight at all costs; in fact, it is more about changing your diet and lifestyle in a way that will make you healthier, and losing weight is more of a side effect than anything. Basically, if you’re eating healthily and exercising regularly, your body will begin to rid itself of the excess weight on its own.

If you’re having problems deciding what foods you should be cutting down on/eating more of, and which exercises you should be doing to help you achieve your goal weight, there are plenty of dietitians, nutritionists and personal trainers out there who will be glad to help you get healthier and lose weight the right way. The first step is always the hardest one, but what you have to do this Weigh-In Day stand on that scale and commit to the decision that you want to slim down.