It feels like one continuous assault from late November to New Year. Count the actual days and it isn't — and that changes what you need to do about it.
Between the start of December and New Year's Day there might be ten real events. A couple of work parties, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, a few family and friend things.
Ten days out of roughly sixty. The other fifty are ordinary Tuesdays where nothing is happening and nobody is pressuring you to do anything at all.
Ten big days at 1,500 over is 15,000 calories — about two kilos, if you absorbed none of it. Spread across the nine weeks it's roughly 240 calories a day. One snack.
That is the entire Christmas season, in numbers. It's a much smaller problem than the dread suggests.
Work party on Thursday? Take 200 off Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The party's covered before you walk in, and then you forget about it until the next one appears.
One event at a time, handled in the week it happens, is the whole method. Trying to hold a six-week plan in your head is what makes people abandon it in week two.
Not to lose. You can't fail at maintenance the way you can fail at a deficit, and one flat week in nine costs you essentially nothing. Removing the failure condition removes the spiral, and the spiral is what actually does the damage.
Not getting through December without eating well — that's a miserable target and you'd be right to reject it. You're aiming to arrive at January without having quit.
The people who manage it aren't the ones with the most willpower. They're the ones who dealt with each thing as it came, instead of bracing against all of it at once.
Leeway is a free tool that does this arithmetic for you. Put what's coming up into the week and it spreads the cost across the days around it, with a floor it won't plan below.
Open the planner — freeLeeway is a planning tool, not medical or dietary advice. Calorie figures are typical estimates and vary by brand, measure and recipe. It isn't suitable if you have, or have had, an eating disorder or a disordered relationship with food. If you're unsure what a safe calorie target is for you, speak to a GP or registered dietitian first.