You are well behaved all week, exercised, ate right . . . did everything you needed to do to feel good and work toward your goals. Friday night hits, and lets say, for the sake of argument, you are going out of town to see family. Now, if you are like me, your family likes to eat when they all get together.

So how do we survive and not undo our week? If you have a good way . . . for the love of all things holy let me know. This is something I have always struggled with. I have a hypothesis of why this happens, why I revert back into my old eating self despite everything I do when I am away from my childhood home.

So here is my theory: When you are with people you grew up with, you revert back to those habits. The eating habits AND your social habits. I think it is important to clearly iterate that both of these things happen because, honestly, most of us are social eaters. Obviously this isn't, like, a ground breaking discovery, its just common sense.

So . . . the real task is how do you maintain your current self when you essentially go back in time? I propose one simple thing: Run.  Taking time out of the social aspect of the weekend with the family and going out and taking care of yourself  will be all you need to make good decisions when it comes to everything else. Personally, when I feel good after a work out, the last thing I want to do is eat something bad and undo it. It is just enough motivation for me to be able to resist the temptation to gorge myself. Running also refocuses your mind, it brings you back inside yourself to think. I think this is the key to surviving these kinds of weekends and holidays.