Did you ever think about treating your body to a blissful holiday break? Not on a beach somewhere (though that’s good too), but from the excess sugar, fat, alcohol, caffeine, stress, and exhaustion that can come with the season..

Valuing your body means treating it well with foods and exercise that are good for it. Treating your body means you’re less likely to gain weight. This season try giving your body a gift of good health. You might even let it outside in the fresh (though sometimes freezing) air for a walk!

Watching portion size is always a must for weight control. But during the holidays it's especially easy to eat bigger portions and more of everything. This is a major contributor to holiday weight gain.

Think about how big a turkey is, for starters, or the massive spread of food on Christmas day, or the mountains of hors d'oeuvres piled up on party tables, or the heaps of homemade cookies and cakes. Be aware that the large amount of food around you may prompt you to want to eat bigger portions than you normally would eat. Make a conscious decision to eat certain portion sizes and stick to it. Don’t be fooled by the overabundance of food around you.

Although the festive season may not be the most conducive to keeping track of your eating and exercise habits by recording them in your Food and Exercise Diary, it is critical to keeping off holiday weight gain.

Make a commitment to yourself to continue tracking food and exercise habits throughout the holidays – it should only take a few minutes each day. Even if you feel there is not enough time, do it anyway. No excuses! It takes less than ten minutes a day to record your food and exercise.

Holiday time is prime time for putting important things off until the next day, and the next, and the next. Important things such as controlling what you eat and how much you exercise.

CalorieKing.com member, Amanda, suggests a way for dealing with this problem. “If you feel like you've strayed from your weight-control plan in the holidays,” she says, “don't think ‘I'll start again tomorrow.’ Start again immediately. If you say you'll start again tomorrow, why not say the same the next day? If you keep waiting until 'tomorrow,' you might never make the changes you need to make.”

Take Amanda’s advice these holidays, and remember that tomorrow never comes – don’t put weight control plans off until the next day or they may never happen.

On the other hand, the fact that tomorrow never comes makes it all the more important to enjoy the festivities and the company of family and friends while the season is here. But that can be hard to do if you spend 100 percent of your time and energy worrying and fussing about food. Keep things in perspective, make healthy choices, and have a small slice of pumpkin pie while you’re at it. After all, it’s the holidays. Enjoy!