'Tis the Season to Get Fat!

it was blueberry and cherry pie mania yesterday morning....
the most amazing tasting pies by my beautiful and talented sister

I am sure no one wants to talk about food today (including myself). Yesterday was a great day filled with lots of cheese, crackers, dips, veggies, champagne and pie! 

yummy apps

some of the deserts

my favorite part of the day!

the other app table...with my prized spinach & artichoke dip...
a huge favorite

Since yesterday marked the official start of the 2011 holiday season, I figured I should sit down with myself (and you) and hash out how I am going to not gain weight. I could twist myself into a guilt trip over every piece of cheese I inhale and every glass of wine I down, however I have been working on accepting things and not working myself up about what I can't control and what I shouldn't worry about. 

My health is definitely one of those things I was stressing about for a while. When I get an idea in my head (i.e. I can control my health by the way that I eat) I have the tendency to take it to extremes and then stress myself out because it is not working perfectly. Changing my eating habits is a perfect example of this. When I started learning about how the food that you eat affects you, I was like I NEED TO CUT EVERYTHING BAD OUT OF MY DIET RIGHT NOW! Which I did for the most part, but then I would go out to eat, and after the fact realize that I ate something "bad" and then I would feel guilty about it. 

It took me a while to get to the point where I realized that the stress of eating healthy all the time was probably worse for me than the actual unhealthy eating. I sort of eased into eating super healthy during the week and slacking off a little on the weekends. Holidays are no different for me- they are just another weekend. So, yesterday was a complete binge fest... and today I ate a little bit of the leftovers (including the giant make-your-own cannoli thing-AMAZING!), but tomorrow....back to normal! Green smoothies and salads, fish, eggs, fruits and vegetables. 

The 80–20 rule states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come 

from 20% of the causes. 

Has anyone else found this rule to be true?