Have you ever tried following a clean diet or lifestyle, you go to a party and there are sugary temptations everywhere? Not only will the temptations be there, but there will be friends and family pushing you to eat these sugary treats as well. One of two things will happen if you go into this without being prepared properly. One, you are going to force yourself to eat NOTHING at all, you will have the toughest time, which means your mind will spin into a bad mood, in turn this means you’re not going to have a great time (not ideal). Two, you tell yourself that you have worked hard enough and you indulge into everything you see, but in reality, you are just giving yourself an excuse to take the easy way out and give into the pressure of temptations and friends.

Neither of the 2 scenarios mentioned above are ideal of course. Life is short and you want to enjoy life and social situations with your friends and family. But on the other side, you want to live inside a healthy body as well. What if I tell you there’s a path in the middle? You can have both but you need to know how to set yourself up for success.

It all starts with breakfast

Whatever social event or party you go to usually doesn’t start until later on in the day, so what is stopping you from starting the day strong? By focusing on high protein and nutrient dense foods during breakfast you will accomplish a couple of different things. First, you’re obviously fueling your body with the nutrients it needs to function properly, recover well, maintain energy and keep you healthy. Second, choosing to eat those healthier foods is a conscious decision, that will make you feel impowered and set you up to make better decision during that party later on. ”Win the morning, win the day”.

Workout before you go

Obviously, working out is a great thing to do regardless of what is going on the rest of the day. In this instance it is important for two different reasons. The first one is similar to one we have already talked about. Working out is an effort and it takes determination to wake up, pack your gym bag, walk/cycle or drive over to the gym, change and start your workout. Making these ”hard” choices at the start of the day will make sure any decisions you have to make during the party seem a lot easier. On top of this, after completing a workout your body is tempted to eat nutrient dense foods rather than processed-high sugar foods.

Two, getting a workout in before any party will obviously burn more calories. This is more of a fail-safe. If you don’t succeed in resisting any of the temptations, you can at least look back and be satisfied with getting this in earlier that day.

Eat more pre-party

This might seem obvious and simplistic but a lot of times we forget to do this. Have you ever thought to yourself; I am not going to eat a lot of food before going to a party because I will eat there? It’s like we’re setting ourselves up to binge at the party later on. How about we actually eat like normal when we’re at home and save ourselves from binging on all the cakes and cookies later on.

When you’re eating at home, make nutrient dense, protein rich and fat heavy foods a priority, in that order. Most party foods/drinks will be carb heavy so focus on the other nutrients first instead.

Load up on the ”good” stuff first

All of the parties or social events I have ever been to offer a mix/variety of nutritious and ”desert” type foods. The easiest thing to do right here is load up on the healthy and nutrient dense foods first, let that sit for a little bit and then see if you’re still up for more or the other desert like foods. This approach will obviously fill you up more which will leave less room for the sugary stuff.

The rule of 1

Let’s say you get to a party and there’s no ”regular food” available. All you see is a table laid out with different cakes, cookies, pies and other sugary treats. On top of that, there’s a table filled with different wines, beers, ciders, whiskeys and other alcoholic beverages.

Decide if you actually want to indulge yourself into any of these things or if you’re actually not feeling like it, because you obviously don’t want to force yourself to eat these things. Choose your absolute favorite sugary treat and drink, allow yourself to have those two things (one of each) and stick with it. This will make sure you’re not totally restricting yourself; your friends won’t bother you as much and you’re mitigating the ”damage” (for lack of a better term) as much as possible

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