6 Tips to Help You Eat Healthy This Holiday
The most wonderful time of the year is given its moniker, because it is a time of feasting, lot’s of feasting. As we settle into the new year, most of us will find that our waist sizes are a few inches wider, and some of our clothes don’t fit like they used to, if at all they do. Wonders indeed.
This seasonal weight gain every year end doesn’t have to be the case this time, there are ways to feast and stay trim. These are:
Take a bottle of water to every event you’re invited to
This is for two reasons. First to remind you of your health commitments, second to signal to others that you’re sticking to health commitments. Also having a water bottle in hand makes it much easier to say no to soft drink offers.
Drink water before meals
Water makes you feel full, and thus helps you limit the amount of food you can eat at a go. This is a nifty trick to help with portion control.
Use Healthy Ingredients to Prepare Your Meals
Where you can, replace sugar with fruits or fruit-sauce for sweetness, replace milk chocolate with dark chocolate, replace cream with yoghurt, buy a lot of nuts and snack on them instead of chips, replace white bread with whole-grain bread, replace butter/mayo with healthier alternatives like avocado spread, and try to include as many vegetable in your meals as you can.
If you can, Take food to gatherings
This isn’t as easy as the first, especially in a country like Nigeria, where rejecting hospitality can seem like a slap in the face, no matter the intentions. However, for occasions where it’s mostly family involved, it’s a lot easier to pull this off. Having your specially prepared health meal and snacks around, will ensure you have something to munch on while you watch others eat.
Have an accountability partner who goes with you to events
This is won’t be easily applied as the other person will have a life, however, if you have a friend who can tag along with you to all your events and vice-versa, things will be much easier. It’s much easier to decline food you shouldn’t eat when there’s someone keeping you in check, also he or she will be of great help when it comes to declining food you’re being subtly pressured to accept.
Be Honest
Sometimes this is the only way forward, and the best at that too. Letting people know you have health commitments and are trying to stay trim takes a lot of the stress away, and helps you stick to your health plan.
