Mile 20 of the weight-loss marathon is clearly marked: It’s the period between Thanksgiving and January 1. This stretch of bad road, we all know, is where dreams of smaller pants and lighter legs hit the wall. I confirmed this when I looked in my fridge a few days before Thanksgiving and counted 40 sticks of butter.

While many runners don’t have to worry tons about gaining a few cookie-pie-cocktail pounds over the holidays because they’ll burn that junk up on their next uphill 15-miler, some of us do have to sweat over holiday eating. But now that I’ve had a successful few months—in the form of a 5K PR and lost pounds—I’m determined to stare that butter in its face and say, “Not today, you delicious, creamy, make-everything-better hunk of hip-stretcher. Not today.”

Here’s my plan of attack. What’s yours?

Complete the Runner’s World Run Streak: Conceived by Meghan Loftus, the #RWRunStreak coaxes us to run at least a mile a day, every day between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. I hedged the last couple times RW has streaked (some nonsense about thinking my body couldn’t handle 40 days in a row of running), but not this time. I’m in. I suspect the most difficult days will be the day after my Tough Mudder next weekend and on travel days. But I guess that’s the point: Gut it out to prevent you from gutting out.

Set My Mini-Goal: While the rest of the world either gains weight or fights for equilibrium, I’m going to try for a negative balance—lose 5 more from now until January 1. I’m also upping my weigh-ins from once a week to twice a week. Accountability.

Add in Some Swims: Best antidote for eggnog: bathing suit.

Don’t Deprive: I know I won’t eat perfectly 100 percent of the time, so there’s no reason to set myself up thinking I will. But what I will try to do is nail it for darn near the entire day—eat smart for as long as I can. And if by gawd, I want to have a sliver of something different at the end of the day, I will—and not feel guilty. And the longer I can last every day, the better shot I have for making it a clean one. To that end, I’m also going to allot myself four anything-goes meals during this stretch (Thanksgiving counts as one). Christmas prime rib, you are so toast.

Combat Visual Stimulation: We all know the problem with the holidays (did somebody just say toast?). Somebody brings caramel popcorn to the office, you see the caramel popcorn, you eat the caramel popcorn. Now multiply caramel popcorn by every evil holiday food that flashes itself and there’s one thing you’re not going to be seeing very soon: Your toes. So here’s my plan. Have another visual reminder out in the open to counteract the effects of candied pecans. I’ve recently dropped one pants size and am on the verge of dropping another, so I just bought three pairs of pants that I’m not quite ready for. I’m going to keep them out in the open until I am. Take that, gravy!

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For the record, gravy did defeat Ted Spiker on Thursday. You can follow him on Twitter at @ProfSpiker.

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