Mindful Tips for Dealing with Holiday Eating

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Tips from our trusted Page Love, MS, RD, CSSD, LD - 

Holiday parties and social gatherings can bring challenges to your normal nutritional routine.  Here is a handy list of tips to help you navigate holiday eating.

1.       Eat a snack before social eating situations such as an apple or baby carrots and string cheese.  This will settle your hunger so you will not overindulge in party food
2.       Both offer to bring a healthy appetizer as well as try to find out about the menu ahead of time so that you can pre-plan your meal.  Healthy appetizer options include a fruit salad or a veggie tray with a healthy yogurt dip
3.       Once you arrive, first choose a hydrating beverage to help with hydration and help decrease overall alcohol intake.  Choose beverages like club soda, diet sprite, Fresca, or decaffeinated diet sodas.
4.       Next, scan over your options and make a food plan starting with putting fresh produce options on half of your plate (like the fruit or veggie tray you brought) and whole grain breads/crackers with lean luncheon meat or lean roast beef.  It is fine to save a place on your plate for bites of other options or desserts but have three quarters of your plate be “food group” foods:  Fruits, veggies, lean meats, and grains
5.       Prioritize your fat choices.  You actually should plan on 1 to 2 sources of fate, choosing such options as cheese or a dip for your veggies. These aid normal satiety and fullness.
6.       Healthier dessert options are the fruit fillings in fruit pie, oatmeal or gingersnap cookies, pumpkin pie in a graham cracker crust
7.       Plan on filling your plate one time.  Then, sit down and take 20 to 30 minutes to enjoy your foods while chewing thoroughly and drinking your hydrating beverage between bites.  Also talk and socialize between bites.  Let the social aspect of the meal help with being in cue with normal satiety.
8.       Check in on your fullness by pausing halfway through and again two-thirds through your plate and asking yourself “How much more do I want and need to eat?”  Give yourself permission to stop when you are starting to feel comfortably full (a 6 or 7 on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being uncomfortably full)
9.       Give yourself a formal “stopping point” that your eating time is over when you are starting to feel comfortably full.  This could be as simple as throwing your plate away, putting a breath mint in your mouth, or brushing your teeth when you are done.

10.   Position yourself with your back to the food table as you are eating.  When you are done, try to remove yourself from that room. Start to socialize in other parts of the home in which the party is being held. 

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