One of the fun parts of life is attending social functions involving your family, friends, work colleagues, neighbors or other groups of people you like to hang out with. These social functions are NOT usually “let’s meet at a gym and all work out”. Rather, all of them will occur at restaurants, bars, someone’s house and/or other venues. Accompanying these social gatherings: usually LOTS of high caloric/high carbohydrate/high fat foods and alcohol. Clearly, for those people trying to shed weight, attending social functions can derail weight loss efforts.
For those people that infrequently attend social functions, there is not much thought/planning that needs to occur. Try your best to limit the derailing food/drink items and if you happen to gain weight that week due to the social function you attended, just go back to Phase 1 for one week and this will undo the “damage”.
However, there are a number of people that frequently gather for social functions, even to the extent of numerous times a week. For those people, a definitive game plan needs to be developed because if not, there will be little-no chance of a successful weight control effort.
Here are some recommendations for those of you that do frequently attend social functions:
- If given the chance, hang out with those people that are “health conscious” as opposed to the side of the room where the alcohol and carbs are free flowing.
- Separate yourself from the “herd mentality”, i.e. just because everyone else around you is downing the wine and eating desserts, you do NOT have to join them in these behaviors.
- Check out restaurant menus before you attend the function and have your high protein/low carb order already in your mind
- Learn to separate the fun of being around others from the foods/drinks that accompany the events. The people are the really “fun” part…not the inanimate foods
Living a healthier and longer life allows us to attend many more fun social functions. Adhering to your health and wellness journey will increase the chances of us being there for more and more of these social functions.
And my favorite “social” scene from a movie: A classic Rodney Dangerfield picture “Back To School”…for you Rodney fans, enjoy once again classic Rodney.
