Tips to Feel your Best During the Holidays

This time of year onslaught of sweets seems to start with Halloween and doesn’t end until New Year’s resolutions. We like to talk a lot about adjusting your food environment to set you up for success by only keeping fruits and vegetables on the counter at home, for example. It also helps to keep tempting foods that you’d rather not eat out of your house. This tends to get more challenging as food treats abound around the holidays, and if it’s not at home, the treats are in full force at work or at holiday gatherings. By no means do I mean to imply we shouldn’t have any treats around the holidays. It’s really fun to have the treats that only come around once a year. Where we can run into trouble is when instead of having those treats on a few holidays, we end up eating these foods that make us feel sluggish and aren’t consistent with our long-term goals consistently over a 1-month or longer time period.

Here are some tips to try to keep your eating around the holidays as healthy as possible:

1. Stock your house with seasonal fruits and vegetables. Now is the time for delicious citrus and pomegranates and Brussels sprouts to name a few. Enjoy these healthy nutrient and antioxidant rich foods as part of daily eating, but they also work great incorporated into holiday meals.

2. Try nuts in the shell, like walnuts. Nuts in the shell become more widely available in grocery stores. If you haven’t tried nuts in the shell, they often taste so much fresher than shelled nuts, such that they taste like a real treat! Plus it takes time to crack and remove the shell from nuts, which helps us eat more slowly and mindfully.

3. Make dishes with butternut and acorn squash. These winter squashes are nutrient-rich and are lower in carbs than regular potatoes. There’s nothing wrong with having some regular potatoes. It’s just that white potatoes tend to dominate our plates along with other starchy dishes at holiday meals. Winter squashes are also rich in fiber, vitamin E, folate, and beta-carotene.

4. Eat mindfully. Work on eating slowly and checking in with your hunger and fullness cues before and while eating. Avoid distractions like your computer, cell phone, or TV, as we often eat more when we aren’t focused on the eating experience.

5. Avoid eating sweets on an empty stomach. Save sweets for after meals or after a satisfying snack with protein. You’ll be less likely to overeat sweets that way, and your blood sugar will rise more slowly such that you can avoid being on a blood sugar roller coaster.

6. Don’t skimp on sleep. It can be tempting to sleep less when we’re so busy, but less sleep often leads to overeating and more difficulty making healthy   choices.

What to learn more? Book your virtual nutrition consult https://web.archive.org/web/20210302232157/https://www.pullingdownthemoon.com/services/nutrition-counseling/ online or by calling 312-321-0004 today!

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