I’m Tracey! I am a Slimming World Consultant in Tallaght but most importantly I am a Slimming World member. I have lost five stone following the plan and words cannot convey just how much it has changed my life in every single way. I was a comfort eater, a secret eater and miserably unhappy for all of my teenage life. Since becoming a parent something clicked for me. I want to be around for my son for as long as I can be. I don’t want him to grow up seeing food as the enemy and as a reason to hide his emotions. Slimming World has changed everything for me and I want to help others do the same.

Making the decision to lose weight is a huge leap towards something really positive for you and those around you. Your motivation for losing weight may differ greatly from the person sitting beside you at your Slimming World group but it is extremely personal and important to you. It is the very reason you will find the strength to say “no” around your trigger foods and it will spur you to keep moving towards your dream weight.

Making a goal for a particular occasion has a lot of benefits. A lot of members, including myself, find it much more manageable to break goals up into smaller short-term goals. It makes the overall goal and target weight seem more achievable by having little check-points to work towards. It can seem like a great mountain to climb when you look at your starting point and where you eventually want to be. Psychologically it can be helpful to look at the next occasion, birthday or holiday as a motivator.

Christmas is a great reason to make a mini-goal. It falls at the end of the year so it is a really nice focal point where you have either made the decision to do something really positive for your health and well-being, or indeed a year where you’ve done so beautifully and want to continue the trend into next year. Christmas, in particular, is a time of many social occasions and get-togethers. It is a time where you may be reunited with family and friends that you have not connected with for a long time. It is a night that is abundant in invites and reasons to look and feel your best. It is a really nice experience to feel more confident about accepting those invites and feeling comfortable in what you wear and how you look and feel.

Christmas is also a time of reflection. As the year winds down we may find ourselves looking back on the year ahead and considering our triumphs and struggles. We may be happy to put the year behind us or we may feel extremely grateful for a year that brought lots of good things to our lives. It is a really good time to assess where you are and where you want to be. Next year may be the year you decide to go travelling, get married or try for a baby. You might be on the brink of a career change or ready to put yourself out there and enjoy the dating scene. Whatever is in store for you, you will want to feel as good as possible. Making a goal with that in mind is a really good idea. The goal will keep your eye on the prize and help keep your focus on the bigger picture and the things in life that bring greater joy than a truckload of chocolate or a greasy takeaway.

Speaking of those foods – Christmas is also a time of indulgence. There is no denying the fact that there will be more treats, party food and alcohol around than any other time of year. This can be tricky to avoid. Some members make the decision to over-indulge; accept a gain and face it head-on. Others feel that a gain of that proportion will throw them greatly and they decide to food optimise their way through Christmas. This is ultimately a members decision but my greatest piece of advice is to make your weigh-in a given. If you skip weigh in the week before, of and after Christmas it can really really throw you. What should have been a few days of indulgence could turn in to a solid month of it and you may struggle to recover from that. At the same time, your group will always be there to help you deal with that and move on from it with zero judgement or humiliation.

Making a goal for Christmas may be exactly what you need to keep your eye on the prize in November and December. Making a realistic goal and considering all of the occasions and obstacles that may come your way is actually really empowering. You will be dancing into 2019 with a spring in your step ready for another fabulous year of Slimming. And as always we will be there fifty-two weeks of the year to help you do it.