Friday, November 26, 2010

eating healthy through the holidays


I'm sure I'm not the only one concerned about surviving the holidays intact. I am not so much worried about the gift giving and the running around to see everyone. My issue is with all that scrumptious food.

When I decided that I wanted to take better care of myself by eating right and exercising it was June 3RD, my birthday, and I wasn't thinking about Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. I hadn't considered what it was going to be like to eat healthy through the holidays.

Fortunately, I've been making better choices for the past 4 1/2 months; I survived Halloween without eating a single piece of candy. The fact of the matter is that I don't have any desire for watermelon Jolly Ranchers or plain M&M's. What I do crave are those yummy sauces and gravies! Then there is all of that cornbread dressing and those mash potatoes. I could literally drown myself in a vat of gravy, oh the goodness!

But no, not this year, this is the year that I make healthy lifestyle choices. I have a plan. The first thing is that I am only going to drink water or herbal tea. I am not wasting calories on sweet tea; I don't drink anything but water now anyway, so that shouldn't be too hard. Next, I am going to keep on exercising, maybe even increasing my workout on the days that I am likely to want to eat more. The third thing that I am going to is to map out my eating. In other words, I am not going to put anything on my plate that doesn’t have a purpose. I know that if I eat more protein it will help my body process the carbs more efficiently so I’ll eat more lean meat and beans. I’m also planning on using a smaller plate and avoiding going back for seconds. I figure if I eat slowly and enjoy my food I won’t need to load up my plate.
I put this plan into action yesterday and it didn't go too badly. I only put half of a twice baked potato on my plate, I drank water and I resisted dessert by eating an apple. So far, so good. Do you have a plan for eating healthy through the holidays?

No comments:

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” mahatma gandhi