Thinking Ahead for Holiday Weight Management
Simple ways to avoid sabotaging your year-long efforts.
Many have experienced the dreaded realization in January that the holiday feasts and parties have resulted in weight gain, thus necessitating yet another reason for New Year’s Resolutions. It can occur even when we thought we were being careful. What if, based upon experience, we assume this phenomenon will occur again unless we prepare for it?
While it feels like nothing but abstaining from holiday activities will affect the upward weight trajectory, there are some strategies one can deploy to limit or possibly eliminate the damage. Here are some practical, easy suggestions from a certified nutrition coach.
Calorie Light to Calorie Dense
On the day of your holiday party or Covid-friendly gathering, plan ahead what you will eat in the hours preceding the event and select calorie-light foods. Assumedly the food at the event will be calorie dense. For example, have an almond milk+protein powder shake for breakfast and bone broth chicken soup for lunch. Eat just enough to prevent you from feeling like you are starving. If you are too hungry, you will mow down on the snack table before the holiday feast. Eating smartly earlier will also ensure that you have not used up your caloric intake for the day by the time you arrive at the party.
Be Present in the Moment
These are meaningful, memory-making days. Slow down, step back from the action and pretend you are watching a movie of the event — dining well. Memorize the smiles, the sounds of laughter (or football game in the background!), the aromas of food cooking. And when it comes time to eat, focus on how special the food is. Slow down. Try to identify all the ingredients in each bite (herbs and spices used, the butter, the temperature). Put your fork down after each bite. Smell the food. Why? Digestion starts in the brain. Slowing down allows the body time to send the required signals that food is coming. Mouth starts to salivate (moistens the food and adds chemicals that prevent pathogens from entering our systems, uses amylase to digest starch and uses lipase to start to digest fats). This is why you should chew thoroughly to allow for these processes to occur. The stomach prepares digestive enzymes during this time. Effective digestion occurs when we are calm and restful. You want your body to absorb all the wonderful nutrients found in food. Festive meals should help to remind us that eating is an event, not something to rush through and check off our to-do list. When we eat slowly, we feel full faster. We won’t stuff as much in and therefore, it will help ensure we don’t eat more than what our body needs (putting it bluntly, it helps ensure we don’t weigh more when we step on the scales in January!). Most importantly, eating mindfully leaves room for gratitude... for the food, for the hands that prepared it, for the farmers who planted it, for the company who partakes it with us.
Decide Your Treats Beforehand
Decide beforehand and in a specific way how much you will treat yourself. It is not a good idea to think you will abstain. You will probably cave when hungry, and then feel like you failed. A consistently healthy diet allows for treats once in a while. Be specific though. For example, “I will have two glasses of red wine. One before supper and one during the meal”, “I will select one Christmas cookie and enjoy it with my coffee after dinner”, “I will measure out some nuts into a small plate, eat them one by one and when the plate is empty, I am done eating nuts”.
Keep Perspective
Healthy nutrition pivots around consistency over time, not perfection. As long as you consistently prioritize throughout the year to minimize processed food, get enough protein and vegetables, you can enjoy a splurge now and then without regret. It might be more important to Mom’s self-esteem that you partake of her hard work preparing Grandma’s traditional brandy plum pudding.
Where to be Strict
To balance the preceding paragraph, you should not cross some strict lines when it comes to having seconds, overfilling your plate and mindlessly hovering around the snack table. Never go back for seconds unless it’s for vegetables. Your plate should be one layer of food. And you must always be thinking about eating when you decide to have snacks. Shoving food in your mouth when talking means you are multitasking eating with conversation. Select one or the other. Talk. Eat.
Stay Safe
This post was written December 2020, when the Covid Virus was on the uptake, second wave. I recognized that not all areas of North America (and around the world) would be having Holiday parties and family dinners. For our mental health and well being, I think families should consider replicating holiday traditions within the single household. These healthy guidelines would still apply.
Get Moving
Not only does movement aid digestion, but it justifies a Christmas cookie or two. Bring appropriate footwear and go for a walk before or after holiday dinner. It’s a great way to have a conversation with relatives that is Covid-friendly. Any movement is going to help reduce the negative impacts of indulging; don’t always think of movement as lifting weights or running 10km. Movement sends a message to the body to retrieve stored energy and use it or to use it for repair rather than for storing fat. Movement also helps to effectively clear out waste.
I hope I have outlined for you a manageable plan to balance the festive season with your weight management goals. And when it’s time, carefully consider your New Year's Resolutions. Perhaps saying you will lose 10 pounds is not the best goal. Consider a series of goals that bring you to deep health. I wager the weight will come off once you implement, slowly and consistently, new habits. Some places to start? Eat more lean protein. Reduce sugar intake. Make your own meals. Walk to work. Eat slower. Have a veggie with each meal. Most importantly, tackle each of these goals one at a time until you are executing consistently before layering on the next goal. This way, the habits will stick. The benefits of such habits resonate beyond weight management and to an investment of future health.
If you are interested in having an online nutrition coach to help you set grounded and scientifically sound deep health goals through nutrition, contact me for information here.
ADDENDUM
Nutrition suggestions are derived from my experience as well as from my training from Precision Nutrition.
