Another month, another thread.
It is getting to be feasting season again. In the USA that starts with all the sweets of Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving, Xmas, and New Year. Always a challenging time. So how are you all planning to handle yourself through all this?
It starts to be carni season again for me as only a few fruit seasons are left… I will indulge in them in weekends only if I get my way… We will see.
It was long ago I weighed myself, I will at some point but I surely am 74-75kg as always. Maybe this month will change it a tiny bit.
Summer ended, finally but it’s still quite warm. Over 25C may happen, forecast says. Probably not here, we didn’t have 25-30 here since weeks while other parts of the country had it. It’s a tiny country but big differences happen.
Every day (that isn’t something else) is Halloween for me but I never had candy for that, we didn’t celebrated Halloween when I was a kid and many people dislikes it even now and stick to their day of the dead despite it’s on the next day… Halloween is about skulls and witches and ghost and vampires and spiders everywhere, way better than candy if you ask me.
We don’t have Thanksgiving, of course so Christmas is our next potentially carby celebration. New Year is traditionally carnivore for me since years and it was keto before, maybe some fruity spiced wine happened but that’s it. As I am at home then so I cook whatever I want.
We have a family Christmas dinner elsewhere but it’s not impossible to keep it carnivore. I am just not THAT determined. I still keep it low-carb as why wouldn’t I want to ruin the celebration with inferior food and sugar poisoning? My preferred food is the same all year round.
Santa brings candies on 6th of December, that may be a problematic time but it’s just a little package from my SO’s Mom and my poor SO is ready to sacrifice himself and eat my share. About one months ago, 13 years into low-carb I finally had enough of eating any store-bought sugary food ever. I used to have some very occasionally but not anymore. And I can be very stubborn. (If I ever got Australian candy, that would be an exception but local candy? Nope. I can do so much better. And consuming keto sweets is already off eating and calms down my rebellious self.)
But yes, December isn’t a keto month for me, usually. It never was, I mean but who knows what will happen now? Carnivore changes me bit by bit.
It’s not the candy, not even the homemade baked goods (though I will bake some this year - to save us both from my SO’s Mom’s, they are very tasty and sugary. at least I will use xylitol. and of course, a somewhat lower-carb dough), it’s the tropical fruits I can’t imagine December without. Not like I don’t tend to eat them in summer too. They are banned in November and between January and May though, these are the month I have any chance to do carnivore due to the lack of fresh fruits (there are some fruits available except in May and maybe in April but little).
Fruit seasons still have a serious effect on my actual diet. I fell out of love with vegs but not fruits.
So, October is coming down from the summery, carbier style, I plan to do carnivore on weekdays and a bit more relaxed version in weekends (it’s grape season but apple too).
November should be carnivore, December should be carnivore in the first half unless I will need to practice my baking… The second half is anyone’s guess but I traditionally go super strict on the 25th of December when it becomes very easy to do. Christmas family dinner is on Christmas day and that is the 24th. The “actual” Christmas days are merely off days for me, nothing interesting happens there.
I hope I will be able to do my best in the next months. Next problematic time comes in June with many of my fav fruit seasons. It’s so easier until then. But December may be a tad tricky too (especially that I have zero inclination to resist temptation, not like I ever could to that. but I am a hedonist so I won’t go wild and ruin my quality of life when I prefer my normal food anyway).
I’m taking it one month at a time. October is not a big challenge, the hard part for me starts toward the end of November, so this seems like a good time for a little extra discipline to give me a leg up for the holidays. I spent a lot on groceries last month and now I have a whole freezer full of protein I can rely on. I know, life is what happens when you’re making other plans, but this seems like a quiet period where the other plans might actually come to something!
Yes. October is my training for November and November is - among others - training for the holidays… I expect new changes. If I can’t get tempted, I am good.
And isn’t that a lovely feeling 
My freezer is tiny but it’s still nice to have some variety in it and I can always buy more of my usual pork locally…
We have stopped supporting the habit of giving away candy to the kids. We did glow in the dark braclets one year, not too many showed up. So we have now decided to have lights out and not give away anything. Most of the kids we knew are growup now. I am happy I don’t feel like I have to have goodies around for kids I don’t even know. Our city does a nice Halloween event downtown and kids can load up on goodies there.
I quit handing out candy too. I give out eyeballs (like ping pong balls, on Amazon). The kids go nuts for them!
I’ve been through one carnivore holiday season and it wasn’t a problem. I can bake without wanting any but I’m not sure it will come up!
Just taking out one day at a time, and hopefully it will all work out.
I taste everything I bake except Alvaro’s bread. Though I had years when I still tasted it here and there. I find it inferior (it’s eggless!!! all good bread is eggy if you ask me. my bread role baked thing is 100% egg and pretty great for the buttered bread role), I can bake much better but it doesn’t mean it never tempts me. But I trust I am okay already. And I always was when I was determined. But determination is tiring and at some point I get worn down. So it would be quite bad if I had somewhat nice carby treats at home on holidays. But I have not. Even if my SO gets some from his Mom, I can just consider it his or put them away. Surprisingly effective if one is me. I don’t eat up other people’s food and put away in the freezer isn’t the same as being around normally, I don’t know why. It’s probably another layer and reminder in my mind. Real desire can overpower it but feeling real desire towards sugary things that aren’t even fruits or carnivore things (I love animal sugars. especially when it is lactose)? Pretty unlikely. But “being there”, “being there AND for a limited time, just now and never again for a whole year”? I am vulnerable to those, less so as time passes, fortunately. And those things need to be tempting. If I look at them and see something hopelessly inferior to my normal dishes, well the variety lover part of mine may roll with a dice to still win over Temptation that I never ever personified yet but it happened now, apparently… But otherwise, nope, I choose my better food as I am a hedonist and why to rob myself of eating the better stuff (actually, no, I can eat both, wrong items make overeating way easier and I am pretty good at it to begin with).
It seems talking about holidays trigger these thoughts… Maybe it’s good to think about it. When temptation hits, I don’t always have time to stop and think. But when I do it, I make better decisions as I am not stupid. I know what I should do and why, I just don’t care about it sometimes. One role of my self-training is to avoid these impulsive bad decision making moments. I use multiple methods. Best if I lose interest in anything not right but that may go slowly. So I have some hard rules coming from thinking, changing but mostly having enough at some point. I “always” was against added sugar but now I can’t justify it even for very occasional cases. I still fail but it’s stupid and not justified and not hedonistic while I was fine with very occasional exceptions before.
But any holiday involving treats is months away for me 
Now I do my best to put many carni days into my October and hopefully very many ones into November. With a tiny eating window and successfully minimalized macros. I am good at protein and carbs don’t matter for me on/close carnivore (and they don’t go too high anyway, usually), I mostly try not to overdo fatty dairy. It’s harder than I imagined, it even feels I barely touched any on some days but they add up easily without satiating me.
Sweets aren’t a problem for me and we don’t get trick or treaters here because I don’t live in a neighborhood.
Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve are just 3 days and don’t cause me any issues, so I’m good there too. The first couple of years I cooked strict keto holiday meals but have relaxed a bit for the holidays.