Navigating your holiday feasts

From cookies, to dinner rolls, to excessive wine, there are many pitfalls around the holiday table.  Here are a few tips to make the best choices and avoid going home having completely destroyed your diet:

1. Make your plan ahead of time: think about where you want to spend your calories–what will bring you the most enjoyment?  Don’t fill up on store-bought pretzels If you wait all year to have one of grandma’s cookies.  Have one...but just one.  And not 4 other cookies that someone else brought, and a slice of pie!  Prioritize.

2. Limit your alcoholic consumption to 1 drink, and watch out for liquid calories in general:  having excessive alcohol will cut the legs out from under your willpower.  Don’t go there–stick to the plan you made!  Also, other drinks like eggnog or apple cider pack a caloric punch and don’t register as far as making you feel satiated.

3. Don’t show up starving: plan ahead for long drive times (bring a serving of trail mix with you?) to make sure you don’t arrive having not eaten all day.  Your plan will go out the window real quick if you gorge on appetizers because you didn’t think ahead.

4. ½ your plate is veggies: when you go to grab your main course, let ½ of your plate be dedicated to vegetables.  Maybe that’s salad and sweet potatoes, or green beans and mashed potatoes…it depends what’s available, but ½ = veggies.

5. Careful what you take home as leftovers: the damage you do at your holiday feast can extend into the following week if you take the wrong things home.  Leftover ham or turkey? Absolutely. Good sources of protein.  Leftover mashed potatoes and gravy?  Let’s pass on that.

We want to strike a balance between enjoying our time with loved ones and staying on track towards our goals.  It can be done, but it takes a little bit of forethought.  Merry Christmas everyone!