It’s holiday season coming up with Thanksgiving and Christmas right around the corner. This means lots of awesome spreads of food from your favorite relatives and friends. This usually means that you get a giant plate of food at the buffet table or served to you at dinner with the family. Holiday traditions such as gingerbread cookies, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, sweet potato casseroles and copious amounts of turkey and ham with mashed potatoes and stuffing are all over the place. You might find some of these items at your offices as well or your place of work.
With all of these delicious items literally put right out in front of you, it’s hard to say no. Trust me, I’m an advocate of eating large amounts of food throughout the holidays. I’ve been known to cook some pretty epic food and also be the champion eater at every holiday event.
This could be a recipe for disaster if your trying to lose weight. With all of these delicious food items around and the pressure of having to eat these items because your relatives or friends made a certain dish, it makes it really hard to try to watch what you eat.
So, what is a good way to mitigate the damage of eating unhealthy Foods that taste delicious and still maintain your weight?
Here are a few recommendations:
1. Track your weight: I always find it amusing to see how much weight I gained after a holiday meal. In order to maintain a healthy weight and not gain too much fat mass, it can be a good idea to utilize the scale to track your body weight. Instead of gaining 5 pounds throughout the Thanksgiving or Christmas week, shoot for your maximum threshold of weight gain to be around 2 to 3 pounds. Being mindful about the amount of body weight that you are at will help you with your food choices and how much food you are eating. This could also help with overeating during the holiday feast.
2. Make sure to pack plenty of vegetables on your plate. When you see that there is a side dish of green beans or a salad of some sort, this will help curve your appetite a little bit and also supply your intestinal tract with plenty of fiber to digest food little more efficiently. Once again this is a great way to help with overeating during the holiday feast.
3. Take a walk after you consume a ridiculous amount of food. Just sitting down after you eat might be a good way to go back to the table and eat more food. Keeping your body active and in motion will be a good way to curve your appetite as well.
The holiday season is a great time to get together with family and enjoy food together. Food has always been a great method of bringing people together. Let’s use food to bring people together and enjoy some good conversations and try not to use it as a gluttonous way to punish our bodies.
