The holidays are quickly approaching! This means delicious meals, cookies, and other treats are right around the corner. The bountiful food options during the holiday season leaves us many opportunities to enjoy our favorite foods. I encourage you to savor these gatherings with family and great food while using these simple tips to help you navigate holiday meals, snacks and treats that this season brings.
Tips:
Eat regularly throughout the day: The classic move to skip meals to “save room” for the incredible dinner that is to come may not be the best approach. When you are skipping meals to save room for the big one, your body is searching high and low for energy (calories). This hunger puts your body in a position to be ravenously hungry and potentially overeat at meal time rather than just eating enough to fill you. Continue to nourish your body with your normal meals throughout the day to keep from getting overly hungry.
Choose foods you enjoy: Holiday meals are typically made up of every possible food you can imagine. When deciding what you are going to fill your plate with, choose the foods you truly enjoy as well as the food you only get this time of year. You don’t have to sample everything on the table if there are items that you already know you don’t love. Choose foods that you want to enjoy and savor them. Take your time to savor and enjoy the meal and those around you *we will talk more about mindful eating later.
Build a balanced meal: Including a variety of food on your plate helps provide you with the vitamins, minerals and nutrients that your body needs but also allow yourself flexibility. If your plate is not perfectly balanced, that is ok. Enjoy the holiday spread of food as well as the company.
Eat mindfully during meal time: Mindful eating is the practice of slowing down at meal time to be in tune with your body and being in the moment savoring the food you are eating. Mindful eating allows you to slow down and truly listen to the signals that your body is giving you and acknowledging them. Mindful eating avoids distractions during meals such as watching TV or multitasking and making eating your main focus.
Offer to bring a delicious fruit or vegetable passing dish: If you are going to a gathering this year, offering to bring a passing steamed vegetable, tossed salad or fruit tray can assure you that there will be a delicious fruit or vegetable side dish to put on your plate. If you are hosting a small family gathering at home this year, consider planning your menu in a way that allows for not only those traditional sides of mashed potatoes and stuffing but also those fresh colorful items such as green beans, sweet potatoes or cranberries. If you are making an appetizer, consider making this Holiday Charcuterie Board. This appetizer is great because there is something for everyone and you can easily include delicious fresh fruit, vegetables, or nuts.
Tune into your bodies hunger cues: As you enjoy the delicious meal before you, keep in mind your hunger level (scale of 1-10). Take time to check in during the meal to see where you fall on the hunger scale. Are you still hungry? Or filling up quicker than you thought?
Get active after your meal: The American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity weekly. About 1 in 5 Americans achieve this recommendation. How do you do with this? Oftentimes the aftermath of a Thanksgiving or Christmas feast is everyone comatose on the couches or floor. I challenge you to be the one to coordinate a family activity such as a walk to get everyone moving. Not only are you improving your own health, you can help encourage family members to do the same. When we mindfully eat and choose to stop eating when we sense our fullness signals, we are more likely to feel like taking a light-moderate intensity walk after the meal instead of sleeping.
Whether you choose to spend the holiday with your immediate household, or if you are attending a gathering using these tools to stay in tune with your body can be a great start to being happily satisfied during the holidays. There is no reason to fear the holidays or worry about the food you will eat. Enjoy the food and the company! You are in control of what and how much you eat so choose food you love and listen to your body’s hunger and fullness signals.
Remember to enjoy this meal, if your plate isn’t perfectly balanced or you ate a slightly larger portion than what is recommended don’t sweat it. This is one day. There is flexibility in what we eat.