Holiday Eating

It is November and that means that our next 8 weeks will be filled with good times, family, friends and a lot of food.  All of those things can be great in moderation but when you have party after party and event after event the calories will add up.  Here are my success strategies to your Holiday eating, and drinking!

1. Be realistic, don't try to lose weight during the holidays
2. Make a realistic goal to maintain your weight or workout 3x per week
3. Don't skip meals, you will be starving and then overeat
4. Pre-eat, when your heading to an event have some healthy veggies and protein at home ahead of time to limit the unhealthy calories at the event
5. Throw away or give a way leftovers, if they are in your house you will eat them
6. When filling up your plate don't forget to add the veggies
7. Focus on eating while sitting down with a plate, grazing over the buffet line can be dangerous
8. Be careful with alcohol, it can lower you inhibitions and create you to overeat
9. Alcohol is also a lot of empty unneeded calories, have a glass of water in between each drink
10.  If you overeat one meal don't let it ruin your day, get back on track with the next meal
11. Take the focus off food, volunteer at a shelter, feed my starving children or a church to spend time with family
12. Plan group activities like a lighted holiday walking tour or window shopping at a local mall
13. Make items you can't eat like a gingerbread house, snowflakes, decorations and ornaments
14. When eating at a potluck bring a healthy dish
15. Always eat all your food on a plate and don't let the food on your plate touch, you can only have so much that way
16. Stay on top of sleep and your workouts, when your not sleeping well or in your normal workout routine you will want to eat more
17. When your ''bored eating'' clean, take the dog for a walk, brush your teeth, drink some water or chew a piece of gum
18. Don't over restrict yourself, you will crash and burn at some point if you do
19. Make a goal for January 1st and stick to it, don't let your holiday eating continue into the New Year
20. Have a great holiday season and spend some time with those you care about

Here are some tricks to help make your holiday favorites a little more healthy

1. Refrigerate your gravy and after it cools skim some or a lot of the fat off the top to reduce the amount of total fat
2. In your dressing use less bread and more onions, garlic, celery and other vegetables, add fruits like cranberries and apples to sweeten and moisten with low sodium broth and applesauce
3. Skip the dark meat and skin on the turkey
4. Cook your green bean casserole with potatoes instead of cream soup and top with almonds instead of  fried onions
5. When making mashed potatoes avoid a ton of whole milk and butter and substitute with chicken broth, garlic, garlic powder and rice milk
6. Make your own graham cracker crust for desserts to lower calories
7. Look for other healthy recipes online, some website I use are http://skinnyms.com/ and http://healthylivinghowto.com/  here are two I found from the Mayo Clinic

• Quick Holiday Nog — Four bananas, 1-1/2 cups skim milk or soymilk, 1-1/2 cups plain nonfat yogurt, 1/4 teaspoon rum extract, and ground nutmeg. Blend all ingredients except nutmeg. Puree until smooth. Top with nutmeg.


• Desserts — Make a crust less pumpkin pie. Substitute two egg whites for each whole egg in baked recipes. Replace heavy cream with evaporated skim milk in cheesecakes and cream pies. Top cakes with fresh fruit, fruit sauce, or a sprinkle of powdered sugar instead of fattening frosting.

I hope you were able to find a few pointers to help in your holiday success, if you have other good ones let me know or leave a comment below!