LOSING WEIGHT AT THANKSGIVING?

What I am doing setting a goal to lose weight during the holidays is beyond me.  And to top it all off, I even made a chocolate cake today that I REALLY don't need (and if you haven't seen my recipe blog, I put the recipe here: Too Much Chocolate Cake so anyone and everyone can eat chocolate cake too and share in my feelings of self loathing).  So the other day I decided that I really can't even try to lose weight right now and I need to put it on the back burner until after Christmas... I mean, there's turkey, pie, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, hot rolls with honey butter... and did I mention pie?  And all this will be followed up with all the Christmas goodies that I make (and of course it's tradition, so it isn't like I can just not make them and disappoint my kids, right?)  And then we'll have progressive dinners, and Christmas parties, and FOOD, FOOD, FOOD!  So that's it, the jig is up.  I'm going to be fat for another two months and THEN I will lose weight.
But then Patrick pulled out the old home movies today...movies from about 2001, back when my kids were little and my butt was LARGE (even larger than it is now) and I was so ashamed I wanted to hide behind the couch every time my huge rolly polly body showed up on the screen (doesn't help that it's a WIDE screen either).  How did I ever let myself get THAT out of control?
Well...some very good things came out of watching the videos...

1. Lately I have been questioning whether or not I ever really lost any weight at all, or if the weight loss was all in my mind. I have now been the size I am now for a couple of years, so I think I had actually forgotten how big I really was back before I started.  WOW, were these videos a good reminder!  I had a flashback of the day Colby came to me after seeing a pair of my jeans laying out to dry on top of the washer and saying "Wow, Mom, your pants are as big as the WHOLE WASHER!"  A real eye opener--let me tell ya... (Not that I didn't KNOW that my jeans were as big as the whole washer, it's just a litte different when someone points it out to you in such a shockingly blatant way)
2. I recommitted that I will NEVER let that happen to me again.  Seeing the video reminded me how miserable I was--when you get winded bending over to tie your shoes, you know it's time to make a change.
3. No matter how much I love Thanksgiving dinner, I CAN continue to watch what I'm doing during the holidays.  It's the difference between eating one small slice of pie and eating the whole pie (the old me would just wait til everyone was in bed and go eat more).  I can still enjoy the food, it will just have to be in smaller quantities.

So there you have it.  I may not really lose much, but I need to commit to getting the exercise I need and then just being careful--there is no reason to act like a pig!  A little bit of everything won't hurt me...it's the seconds that get me every time.  I may not lose much, but if I can at least maintain then I will have accomplished something.