Tips to Eat Healthy During the Holidays
The holidays are a time to reflect on family and friends, give thanks and gain weight. According to recent studies, most people gain weight over the holidays. The consensus of scientists is people gain anywhere from one to seven pounds over the holidays.
Holiday weight gain is the hardest to lose. In fact, most people never lose the weight they gain over the holidays. There are ways to still enjoy your holidays, enjoy the food and not gain weight.
Tips to Eat Healthy During the Holidays
- Do not forget to exercise during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Set a goal to exercise at least 30 minutes each day. Incorporate holiday exercises such as ice skating.
- Become friends with vegetables. Every buffet table has an offering of vegetables and fruits. Fill up on these. Avoid high calorie dips and spreads and look for low-fat offerings such as hummus or salsa.
- Avoid office temptations. Stay far away from the goodies, cakes and cookies brought into your office during the holidays. Keeping a citrus fruit and string cheese or peanut butter and apple around will help eliminate any cravings.
- Avoid the food table. Do not stand next to the food table at buffets or parties. Talk to people instead of eating.
- Remain hydrated. For each alcoholic drink you have, drink two glasses of water or club soda. Over indulging in alcohol causes you to overeat.
- Eat before you go to a party or buffet. Eating a sensible meal at home means you eat less at the buffet.
- Make substitutions. Substitute lighter food during your meals. Stay away from cream-based side dishes.
- Eat slowly. Enjoy a conversation during your meal. Those who carry on a conversation during mealtime and chew slowly eat up to five times less than those who eat without talking.
- Avoid baking. If you must bake during the holidays, search out lower-calories recipes.
Lighter Holiday Recipes Happy Holidays!
My name is Chef Noche, and I'll be joining your HomeBodies monthly newsletter to give you some tips on healthy dining and some easy gourmet recipes, that not only taste great, are perfectly portioned and support your healthy lifestyle.
This month, I'd like to pass along some tips that can help you in the kitchen, or if your visiting friends and family. If the joy of the holiday season tempts you to splurge a bit, just try to stick to portion sizes, and drink plenty of water.
The average Thanksgiving, Hanukkah or Christmas meal contains 4,500 calories and over 229 fat grams. This amount is more than three days worth of fat and calories. This is based on the traditional meal of turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry jelly, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. A few simple substitutions can cut your fat, calories and carbs in half. Try this chef-recommended menu that contains only 550 calories and less than 10 grams of fat.
- Herb-roasted turkey breast. Cook the turkey breast only, instead of the whole bird. Place the turkey breast on a rack to prevent it from basting in its own juices, which adds fat. Eating the breast meat provides 140 calories and three grams of fat.
- Make a cranberry relish by combining fresh cranberries, sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice. You will save 13 calories over the canned version of cranberry jelly, which has 55 calories. The fresh version only has 42 calories and no fat.
- Substitute a dense, whole wheat bread in your stuffing this year for the traditional white bread or cornbread. Use egg substitute, low-sodium, low-fat chicken broth and turkey bacon and shave off eight grams of fat and 102 calories. By making these changes, your stuffing will have 78 calories and one gram of fat per-serving, versus 180 calories and 11 grams of fat.
- Substitute pumpkin cake for pumpkin pie. By making a cake using egg substitute, replacing vegetable oil with applesauce and buttermilk and using a sugar substitute, you can save over 150 calories. traditional pumpkin pie has 320 calories and 17 grams of fat. A lighter version of pumpkin cake contains only 170 calories and five grams of fat.
- Skim the fat from your gravy and cut calories from 50 to 20.
In addition to being a chef, I'm also a diabetic who last lost over sixty pounds with proper exercise and nutrition. I sincerely look for to writing you in the months to come.
|