For Healthier Holidays: Informed choices without sacrifice

We all love the holidays – gathering with family and friends, talking about old times and new, and eating until our bellies explode.

“It’s traditional that we overeat,” said Cynthia Dormer, an assistant professor of nutrition at Metropolitan State University.

The problem often becomes eating and drinking too much, which creates that bogged-down feeling that gets many off track from diet and exercise routines.

Yet it is possible to enjoy food, alcohol and dessert without feeling guilty, and there’s nothing like sailing into the New Year looking and feeling amazing. All it takes is a little discipline and consciousness to enjoy the holidays and still fit into our favorite pair of jeans.

Make knowledgeable choices about what you eat

Eating well during the holidays can be an easy task as long as we know what foods are good and what foods are high in fat and sugar, said Suzanne Nelson, a nutrition instructor at Colorado University at Boulder.

“Thanksgiving is considered the healthiest holiday of the year. People eat sweet potatoes and sweet potato pie, which is actually very healthy,” Nelson said. “One of the most fattening pies at the Thanksgiving table is pecan pie.”

Perhaps opt to switch out the pecan pie for pumpkin pie, which has large amounts of vitamins C and E.

Choose drinks that have a healthy element to them, such as a strawberry daiquiri instead of a beer or eggnog.

“Realize that alcohol has a lot of empty calories. Strawberry daiquiris at least have some vitamin C,” Nelson said.

Turkey is typically the main meal at Thanksgiving and ham at Christmas – both are extremely healthy lean meats, she said.

“The turkey is really low fat, minus all the dressing and all the sauces, and it’s a nice chunk of lean protein,” Nelson said. “Ham has a lot of salt and that can be a problem for someone with high blood pressure.”

For those who suffer from high blood pressure, Nelson recommends eating small portions, or substituting the meat with tofurkey, which is tofu turkey that is sold at most health food stores.

Exercise before and after meals

It’s hard to think about exercise when you’re about to indulge in a favorite holiday meal, yet health experts recommend taking a walk before or after a big holiday meal to help the digestion process.

“A lot of families go for a family hike in the morning and that way you’ve already been active during the day,” Nelson said. “Hike in the morning and then you eat in the afternoon and you don’t gain as much weight because you’ve been on a hike.”

In Colorado, the holiday weather can be bright and sunny or cold and snowy, and either option lends the opportunity to enjoy the fresh air.

If snow is on the ground, go out and play in it and get your heart rate up, and if it’s sunny, go for a hike or a walk.

“Get everyone out from behind the table and take a walk,” said Dormer. “That will help your hearts, and the kids will love it and it’s a nice family time. Those walks can be really good for your metabolism.”

Avoid excessive drinking with the 10-minute rule.

Drinking too much during the holidays is easy to do yet it adds even more calories to the already calorie-loaded day.

Dormer suggests trying to consume only two alcoholic beverages at any given meal, especially during the high-fat holidays.

“In terms of health, we know there’s no good reason to drink alcohol,” Dormer said. “It keeps our body from burning fat. But I think the biggest problem with alcohol is it makes you feel very crummy the next day.”

Dormer suggests asking yourself if it’s really worth that extra glass of wine or that third beer.

“My advice is to wait 10 minutes before you have extra alcohol,” Dormer said. “Make yourself wait.”

If you really want the extra alcoholic beverage after waiting 10 minutes, then go for it, she suggests.

Additionally, watch out for the high-calorie and high-sugar non-alcoholic beverages such as soda pop and eggnog.

“I’d caution people that eggnog is perhaps the most caloric beverage that we’ve ever invented,” Dormer said.

The power of… pessimism?

Both Dormer and Nelson have mirrored recommendations on how to stay healthy during the holidays, yet they also have their own unique ways of psychologically dealing with extra calorie intake.

Dormer suggest that people imagine themselves failing by thinking about overeating and how that might affect their attitudes.

New nutrition studies show that if we imagine ourselves breaking our goals before we actually do so, then we have a higher chance of sticking with healthy eating, Dormer said.

“You think of what the temptations are going to be when you wake up in the morning,” she said. “And then you think, ‘how am I going to blow it?’”

That kind of thinking plants a seed in the brain about how easy it is to fail, making it easier to succeed.

It’s also important to not be too hard on yourself, Nelson said.

“Realize it’s just one day in the year, eat what you want and after that just exercise more and eat less the days before and after,” she said.