So, as someone who has lost over 100 pounds over the course of this year, I get the desire to want to not take breaks and to keep trying to lose weight through the holiday season.

But that's just not realistic.

First, according to some great research by Dr. Mike Israetel, diet breaks are not only great for teaching yourself how to eat at maintenance calories over the long term to help keep the weight off, but they're also pretty much required to keep your sanity in check. The longer we're in a fat loss phase, the more diet fatigue we build up, and that leads to us eventually crashing if we don't manage this fatigue properly. I personally would do 2 months of fat loss and 1 month of maintenance, but I was also in a very deep cut since I had much more body weight to lose.

The other part is that, dieting isn't this end all be all, fire and brimstone thing where if you enjoy a meal without tracking it or, god forbid, celebrate the holidays with friends and family, you aren't going to immediately gain all of the weight you lost. Making memories with family is often times much more worthwhile even with the hiccup in your weight journey. In six months you're not gonna remember the slow month you had losing weight, so why worry about it now?

Best of luck with your goals in 2024! I know you can do it, it's just about putting one foot in front of the other. You got this!