What are you planning on having for your Thanksgiving dinner? With the holidays quickly coming upon us, the difficulty in maintaining a clean, well-balanced diet will become a challenge for most. From turkey to stuffing, cranberry sauce to pumpkin pie, there will be so many choices for you to fill your plate with. Not to worry, you can easily make wise choices for healthy eating during the holidays.
The first rule to remember before grabbing your plate for food picking is this: Watch your portions. Do not load your plate up, I don't care if it's what you may consider to be "healthy" food on that plate, keep the portions small. What you place on your dish is likely to be devoured; the less you add to your plate, the less you will end up eating.
The next rule to remember is to watch what food choices you are making as you walk down the line, placing all of the delicious grub on your dish. You see turkey? Go for it, but watch how much you're getting. A meat or protein choice the size of your fist will do, but no more. You see some green veggies? Please, by all means, throw it on the saucer. And then you come upon the pecan pie. Now I'm not saying avoid this entirely, it is the holidays after all. But watch the portion, once again. If it's a few small bites of pie, it will not hurt you, but don't go for a large piece. Any amount larger than half the size of your wrist for a dessert is going too far.
The third rule to remember while kicking it with your family and friends is to not drink too much while being merry. I'm not saying this from the standpoint of becoming intoxicated. In this instance, I speak on the fact that alcohol will basically tell your body to place those calories you're taking in to fat stores. Nothing shuttles calories to body fat quicker then combining high-calorie eating with alcohol consumption. Without going into the science behind why this is the case, just remember to keep the alcohol consumption to just one or two small glasses of wine.
Just remember these three tips and you'll make it through the holidays without noticing the extra snug fit of your clothes a week later.
Happy, Healthy, and Safe Holidays!