Devlin Brown at the water cooler: Finding balance one good decision at a time

I cannot believe this is happening again. Like clockwork, every January I panic about the festive season weight gain. To be fair, I’d rather enjoy my time with family and friends than prep and pack boring meals, so is this love-handle fate something I should just embrace?

Red One, a movie out this festive season, portrays Santa Claus as a ripped athlete. He still has the white beard, but his chest and arms have surely made Jesse Kriel sit up and take note. It seems even Father Christmas has been reading the Water Cooler column. That’s the reach of Business Day.

Christmas, or the festive season, or the December holidays — whatever you call it — doesn’t have to be a time of gluttony. It can be a time of sampling and tasting wonderful dishes and desserts without going up a trouser size. It can, but most people don’t get this right.

In fact, research suggests that Christmas really is one reason so many middle-aged and older people are overweight. A study in the Journal of Obesity found that the average person (and we will run with this as we know that South Africans and Americans do similar things with their mouths) gains between 360g and just under a kilogram during the festive season.

Not much, right? WebMD and other sources say this becomes a problem when people don’t lose that extra weight in the months that follow. A 1kg weight gain every festive season for a decade equates to being about 10kg overweight. Go look at your Facebook memory from a decade ago!

WebMD quotes Grace Derocha, a registered dietitian and the US’s Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics spokesperson, with the best piece of advice I’ve read: “Food is more than fuel and calories, especially during this time of year. It’s tradition, it’s memories, it’s culture, it’s social connection, it’s family, it’s love. Rather than viewing holiday eating through a lens of denial and saying ‘No’, I suggest focusing on being present to enjoy what you’re doing, including what you are eating, while trying to make the best choices you can.”

Over the years, this column has beat the mindset drum at every opportunity. Why? Not because I have the best mindset known to man — I have terribly weak willpower when there is Ferrero Roche in the house. It is my partner. She astounds and shocks me, in equal measure, with her consistency year in and year out.

Having won a Body For Life challenge 25 years ago, she never “switched off” the mindset. She dialled back the extremism, of course. She stopped counting calories. She started training more smartly. She took up cycling and swimming. She coached people. She studied. But she continues to live her life by making choices that balance happiness in the present with what’s best for her fitness goals.

She doesn’t deny herself anything. She loves pizza and crisps. Just last night she had apple tart and ice cream. But, on the balance of life, her decisions are tilted strongly in favour of maintaining a healthy weight, a good amount of lean muscle and practical fitness.

Does this mean everyone should do this? Of course not. If you are happy — and you should be — then you must make decisions that are right for you. Let’s turn the lens inward for a moment.

This holiday I drank too many hollow calories, I ate lamb and more lamb, and beef and boerewors, I ate pizza and potatoes and butter, and I found the cookie jar. However, I ate until it was enough. Not any more, and I did it consciously.

I made an effort to play touch rugby and cricket and non-contact American football with my sons and brother and brother-in-law. We dived in the ocean and we laughed. I had also packed a green resistance band I bought at Dis-Chem and performed simple resistance exercises before 9am every second morning. I lost 3kg.

At a popular beach bar I saw a group of beer-bellied men, who looked to be in their 40s, imitating and laughing at a couple walking up the beach because they looked like fitness models. I thought, how sad that a year of good decisions is ridiculed and bad decisions are normalised? Let’s normalise being present and living one good decision at a time.