5 Tips For Healthy Eating For The Holidays

The average person gains five pounds at the holiday but you can avoid weight gain by following 5 tips for healthy eating for the holidays. Making healthy choices, controlling portion sizes, and avoiding alcohol and desserts are just a few of the tips for healthy eating for the holidays.

To eat healthy for the Holidays, you will need:

• Common sense
• Good choices
• A little willpower and determination

1. Have a healthy snack. Don’t save your appetite all day and go to a holiday dinner hungry. It is a certainty you will over eat. Have a healthy snack of protein and fruit or vegetables. An example of a healthy snack is low fat cheese slices, lean meat, or low fat cottage cheese with fresh fruit.
2. Watch your portion size. Remember a portion of almost all food is ½ cup. For protein, like a portion of turkey, is three ounces. Don’t fill you plate with more than you would normally eat for dinner any other night of the year.
3. Make healthy choices. Holiday cakes, pies, and candy are tempting and sinfully delicious but instead of eating a big wedge of pie, cut the wedge in half or quarters and eat less. Leave the whipped cream or ice cream off the pie. Christmas fudge can be the most challenging because who can eat just one piece of fudge. Christmas cookies with frosting or icing are load with large amounts of sugar. Look for a dessert with the least amount of fat and sugar and eat just a small amount.
4. Watch your alcohol intake. Champagne, wine, beer, brandy, or spiked punch are all very high in calories and have little nutritional value. After a drink or two your appetite will increase and your ability and willpower to make healthy food choices will decrease. If you are serious about eating healthy for the holidays leave the alcohol alone.
5. Listen to your body and stay active. At a holiday dinner you sit at the table longer socializing making it easier to continue eating long after you are full. When you are full, leave the table. Listen to your body saying you have eaten enough and then get up from the table. The longer you sit there in front of all that tempting food the more you will eat. When everyone else has unbuttoned the top button of their pants and flopped into the recliner to moan about being too full, go for a walk. Take a walk around the block. It will help your digestion and keep you away from the dessert tray.

Tips:

• Save your green salad for last. Americans eat their salad first while the rest of the world eats their salad last. Eating your green salad after the meal will get rid of the stuffy full feeling, aid your digestion, and make you feel better.
• There is always someone, usually the hostess, at holiday dinners pushing food at you. Be strong.