The holidays are an amazing time of the year, full of fun, food, and friends. They are also the most challenging time to stick to a healthy lifestyle with all the amazing holiday parties showcasing delicious food and calorically dense beverages. In this article, I’m going to be sharing my best strategies and tips for how to stay slim, trim and still enjoy the holiday season.
4 Health Tips For Holiday Season
1. Be Ready For Weight Gain
My first holiday health success strategy is to expect to gain 1-2 lbs and be okay with that. Yes, you read that correctly, I’m giving you permission, to give yourself permission to gain weight around the holidays. Why? It’s actually more toxic to our health and waistline to be stressing about eating and gaining weight than actually eating it.
That being said, I’m not saying to go “bonkers” and stuff your face with cheese, crackers, cookies, and eggnog. I’m saying relax your diet around the holidays. The stress will kill you before the cookie you eat at the holiday party does.
The key is finding balance during the holidays with your diet. So plan to take in extra calories. Sounds simple, but if you’re going to be doing a bit of indulging, be sure to balance it out by working out either a little longer or a little harder. If you do not exercise at all, this is a great time to start.
Don’t put it off until after New Years … get moving now! For those of you who exercise, don’t let yourself fall into the easy mindset trap of “it’s ok, I’ll burn it off” mentality too often. This kind of thinking can be a slippery slope to easily put on 5-10 lbs. over the holiday season rather than the 1-2 lbs.
2. Be Watchful Of What You Eat
My second holiday health success strategy is being mindful of how much you eat. I’m sure if you’re reading this, you have heard many health experts harp on how important and effective this simple technique is. However, common sense is not common practice.
I know it can be hard to have just one freshly baked holiday cookie, but expressing a little self-control will reward you with a healthier and leaner body.
Again the key is to balance, have one cookie instead of five. If you know you have some holiday trigger foods that you can’t seem to control, be extra mindful to not bring them in the house.
3. Reduce Alcohol Consumption
My third holiday health success strategy is to limit alcohol consumption. When it comes to alcohol less is better. Because alcohol contains empty calories (no nutritional value) and essentially is poison for our bodies. When you consume alcohol, your body actually stops burning fat until all of the alcohol calories are burned off first!
If you decide to drink at the holiday get togethers, try choosing lower-calorie alcoholic beverages such as tequila or vodka and club soda with a lime, a light beer, or a wine spritzer over calorically dense holiday alcoholic beverages such as eggnog, white Russians, and mudslides, which are loaded with even more empty calories (sometimes even equivalent to a full meal’s worth) and limit it to 1-2 drinks.
Again, the key is to balance.
4. Bring Healthy Food To Party
My fourth holiday health success strategy is to bring something healthy to the party. Choose a dish that emphasizes lean protein and healthy fats over a standard carbohydrate dense dish.
It’s very easy to over do carbohydrate intake during the holidays because most holiday dishes are carbohydrate dense. Bringing delicious healthy holiday options not only ensure you’ll have something healthy to eat, it also encourages your friends and family to do the same.
I hope these tips serve and support you to navigate through this holiday season with ease, grace, and a slimmer waist. Commit to making 2017 full of joy, abundance, love, success, health, and happiness!
Wishing you all a healthy and happy holiday season!
