"I went to this holiday party with every intention of being good," clients tell me, "but before I knew it, I was diving into those mocha peppermint brownies like I'd hit a Prada sample sale. What's the matter with me?" Holiday eating can prove an especially challenging time, what with emotional eating, stress, forced cheerfulness, and massive amounts of baked goods everywhere. That's why I interviewed my friend Susan Albers, Psy.D., author … [Read more...]

Last Thursday I offered 6 strategies to enjoy dinner parties, cocktail hours, and other holiday social functions smartly so you won't have any lingering New Years remorse. Today I'll offer 6 more strategies to guarantee whatever other regrets you have during the holidays (credit card debt, looking at you), getting into that little black dress for the New Years Eve party won't be one of them. Avoid pre-party starvation. You subsist on celery … [Read more...]

Holidays mean giving gifts and getting fat. Between the mandatory alcohol-soaked company party, your aunt’s deep-fried themed dinner, and the dreaded annual Golden Corral family get-together, those 6 weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s create a fat-fueled purgatory. You won’t be surprised, then, to learn a study in the journal Nutrition Reviews showed those infamous 6 weeks explained 51% of your annual weight gain. Stop using … [Read more...]

Last Thursday, I gave you the first 6 tactics to avert holiday disaster. Here are the remaining 7. Have a serious bathroom talk. You’ve reached an excruciating dilemma: go for that second apple cinnamon pasty or respect yourself in the morning. Proceed to the bathroom or nearest private space immediately. You’re going to need to have that talk with yourself in the mirror: are you going to let a wimpy pastry be your undoing? Hopefully … [Read more...]

You’ve got the basics down. You’re doing The Virgin Diet Shake for breakfast and lunch, meeting your 50-gram fiber quota, and writing down everything you eat. You’ve scheduled my 4 x 4 Workout 3 times this week and every week hereafter. Now it’s time to party. Whether it’s your husband’s super-posh annual office dinner or your best girlfriend’s holiday gathering, you’re going to confront the enemy. No, I’m not talking … [Read more...]

“You know what, I lose weight, not gain it, during the holidays,” Valerie Bertinelli told People magazine last year. Why not take that challenge and throw conventional wisdom (you know: that everyone gains 5 pounds during the holidays) out the door this year. Tackle these 7 strategies and you’ll look fit, fabulous, and sexy with no regrets come New Year’s Day. Double Shakes. Big holiday office party or best friend’s gathering … [Read more...]

You endured a two-hour dinner with your overly critical in-laws, your kids are loudly playing X-Box, your husband is snoring on the La-Z-Boy, and you’ve completed your culinary duties with a perfect 20-pound organic turkey. So what to do now? If you’re like most people during Thanksgiving, you slip back into the kitchen to “clean” and nosh on seconds… and thirds… This initiates the holiday-season binge that carries through New … [Read more...]

Walk into your local Target or Walgreens these days and you’ll find aisles overstuffed with severed body parts, fractured skulls, and deadly crawling creatures. Gone are the days of caramel apples and candy corn. Now Halloween candy includes gummy-brown “earthworms,” fake fruit-filled oozing “eyeballs,” and scorpion “pops.” Whatever you call it, it’s all sugar (or more correctly, high-fructose corn syrup), which quickly turns to … [Read more...]