Good morning!
I hope you had an uber-restful sleep and are ready to embrace the day, live out loud, and create your own health experience.
The Body Sass? tip for today is: Top 10 Tips to Enjoy the Holidays?and Still Be Able to Button Your Pants in January!
The holiday season often centers around?food. Lots of FOOD! There?s certainly nothing inherently wrong with that. Food is happy! But, it can certainly add a new level of difficulty into eating for health and caring for the body. There is food and drink everywhere you turn, LOTS of it, and a majority of it is?well?junky. It?s like a two-month festival of refined flour, refined sugar, and alcohol! What to do?
Please know that holiday eating doesn?t have to mean weight gain and derailed health goals. Each holiday season, I share my foundational guidelines for enjoying the holidays AND not exiting the holiday season feeling bloated, junky, and tired. They are:
- Don?t skip meals! Eat a normal breakfast and lunch the day of an evening event. Before you leave for the event, have some cut up veggies or a handful of nuts to curb your appetite. You?ll be less likely to over-indulge.
- Focus on the enjoyment of time spent with family & friends, as opposed to the majority of the focus being on the food spread and the cocktails.
- At the big holiday meal, don?t create a mountain on your plate. Serve yourself a bit of everything you like and eat until you?re not hungry any more. It?s okay to leave food on your plate. A few hours later, you can finish your plate, or go back for seconds.
- If you don?t love it, don?t eat it! Truly, there is plenty of temptation around without eating stuff that doesn?t even really float your boat.
- Gravitate toward the meat and veggies, and minimize the empty starches (mashed potatoes, rolls, stuffing, bread, etc) and sweets.
- Skip the appetizers, or eat just enough to ward off being really hungry until the meal is served.
- Drink red wine instead of beer.
- Alternate a glass of water or spritzer in between cocktails. It will help battle dehydration, cut down on calories, and will give you that ?social prop? of a drink in your hand. In addition to reducing empty calorie intake, you?ll probably feel better the next day!
- Three desserts being served, and you like them all? No sweat. Eat all three, but give yourself three servings that roughly add up to one regular dessert serving. Basically, a few bites of each. Eat slowly and enjoy the flavors.
- Eat slowly & mindfully, enjoying every bite!
Finally, drink plenty of water and don?t eat late into the evening. Enjoy your holiday season, but don?t let the holidays derail your health goals.
The food you eat builds your body, every day, for better or for worse. Make choices for health!
With love & holiday sass,
Laurie
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