After Thanksgiving Healthy Eating Tips

Thanksgiving is over! The leftovers are pretty much gone. The desire for more delicious food might not be gone though. Many people just hop right off of the healthy eating train, and eat junk foods for the next month. They avoid the scale, the tightness of their clothes, and turn off their brains. It's a see food feast for sure. It does not need to be that way though!

Simple tips can help you get right back into healthy eating and help you stay there through the next month of seasonal gorging that goes on around you!

1. Practice Healthy Shopping! This is the biggie. If you don't buy junkie foods, you won't eat them. I was at the store yesterday with a friend who is going to be gone for the holidays. She is visiting her son overseas and leaving her other two kids and husband here. She was filling her cart with caloric stocking stuffers at Trader Joe's. They have tons of new candy items for stocking stuffers. They do look amazing. Put the blinders on. She also bought a large container of gummies for her daughter to eat now so she won't want the Christmas treats and whine for them. Overkill. Her daughter is trying to lose weight and does not need the extra 1200 calories of pure sugar now. I bought kind bars for stocking stuffers, which are a healthier treat. My friend complained at the price of the kind bars which was $1.50. She purchased a 4 oz box of salted caramels for $4.99. Not judging, but we do make choices that don't make sense at this time of year and have great justification abilities.

2. Practice Healthy Cooking! Stick with Vegetable laden dishes for the next month. Stir fries, soups, salads, and pasta dishes full of added vegetables are all good ideas. Limit all processed carbohydrates. Just don't buy them. Stir fries are wonderful and don't need a bed of rice or noodles to taste wonderful.

3. Practice Great Meal Planning. A stir fry and half of a sliced apple for dessert is a nice meal. Get rid of all the caloric sides in favor of simple real foods. This will allow you to enjoy a planned treat without guilt.

4. Ramp up your Produce consumption. Include a salad with lunch, and your dinner meal should be at least half vegetables and not just a small side of vegetables, along with tons of pasta and meat. Keep pasta to 1/4 of your plate, if you are preparing it.

5. Practice Clean Eating. If you are going to eat processed foods, make sure you cooked them at home from simple ingredients that don't need a bar code. You can enjoy holiday treats, just make them at home and upgrade the ingredients. Most baked goods are wonderful with whole wheat pastry flour, less sugar, less fat, and filled with fruit. Find treats that are not your grab and go favorites. Cookies are very caloric and many eat a whole lot of them. It is sometimes better to eat a small piece of pie and be done, than grabbing a cookie every time you pass through the kitchen. It's important to know your trigger foods and steer clear of them during the holidays.

6. Limit excess Sweets and Treats! Encourage your coworkers to limit treats and loading their desks with a treasure trove of candy for grab and go. Many companies are encouraging workers to limit treats. I love this! Most people gain weight from a little overeating, over time, rather than massively overeating. If you can limit the times when you overeat a little, you can be a success. This is called the Mindless margin and understanding it can help you to lose weight.

The trick is to practice a little control during the holidays. This is not the time to mindlessly eat, because treats are readily available. It is just a fact of life. If judging from all of the treats at Trader Joe's yesterday is any indication, you are in for a long and tempting holiday season!

Will Power and Your Diet

I don't have enough will power. That is the excuse I hear most often from overweight clients. Is it true and is there a way to increase your will power muscles and give them the strength to say "NO?" You live in a world filled with food. Everywhere you turn, you are faced with food; fast food, processed food, candy, cookies in the lunch room, vending machines, movie popcorn, events centered on foods, giant cheap bags of your favorite chips and more! It's a food lovers dream come true and it's really difficult to say "NO" to all of these food choices. Many of you made New Year's resolutions to change your eating habits and diet. Well most of you have dropped your healthy eating regime by now. You're back to your old ways, believing that you don't have the will power for success. Please do not sell yourself short. Great strategies trump will power!

Strategies to Follow Rather than Willpower!

• Develop a list of Food Substitutions for the foods that tempt you the most. There are many 100 calorie substitutions, but I would encourage you to develop healthy options that will keep you satisfied. Fresh fruit sorbet or fresh fruit mixed with Greek yogurt can be a great substitution for ice cream lovers. My Food Substitutions will be: _______________________________________________________________________.
• Practice Healthy Shopping: Do not buy foods that cause serious temptation and bring them into your home. This sets you up for failure from the start. Make one decision to avoid junk foods at the store and simply walk by your favorites. If you can't do this, then trade shopping with a friend. The foods that I will not buy to avoid temptation are: ______________________________________________________________________.
• Understand your Food History. Each of you is unique. You face food in different places. Develop a food plan that deals with where food touches your life. This will take some evaluation on your part, but is worth the effort. Many of you could change a few unhealthy diet habits and lose weight without dieting. The unhealthy food habits that I will change are: _______________________________________________________________________.
• Keep it simple from the start. If you reduce your daily calories by 500 calories per day without dieting, but cleaning up your diet, you could lose 1 pound per week. If you did this for one year, you would be 52 pounds lighter. The simple goal of one pound per week is totally doable and not overwhelming. I can eliminate 500 calories each day by: ______________________________________________________________________.

Surprisingly March is "National Nutrition Month!" It seems random, but it's a great time to make some Lifestyle Changes without dieting.