Handling the Holidays

[Kittychick]

Every year the arrival of late October heralds the beginning of the diet disaster season that lasts from the knock of the first trick-or-treater through the ringing in of the New Year.
The temptations to veer from our well-intentioned nutritional plans surround us: huge sacks of Halloween candy fill the shelves of the stores; every magazine cover shows off its glorious holiday treats and plans for bounteous holiday feasts. It’s hard enough trying to keep the goal of nutritional rehabilitation and maintenance in mind without all the extra temptations. What’s a poor dieter to do during these times? Just give up and gain the national average of 5 to 15 pounds between Halloween and New Year’s? Dream of everything, but enjoy nothing? Perhaps we can come up with a Disaster Preparedness Plan for the Holidays.
Halloween Tips
An Ounce of Prevention: Buy the kind of candy that you do not like. You will have treats to give the kids without a big leftover bag of temptation sitting around the pantry shelf. Better yet, give a non-candy treat at Halloween. McDonald’s Halloween coupons or colorful stickers, a small box of crayons, pencils or small party favor toys can be good replacements for candy.
Damage Control: If you do buy candy, get rid of all that’s left immediately after Halloween. Don’t kid yourself that you won’t nibble at it until it’s gone. We all know what happens to an open bag of something sweet that we like. Don’t place such an unfair temptation on yourself or such a burden on your sugar metabolism.
Thanksgiving Feast
Where else but in America would people have a national holiday for the sole purpose of gathering friends and loved ones together to eat the biggest possible amount of food in one afternoon? We would be better off to remember that what we celebrate is a sense of thankfulness for our good fortune, for the communion of family and friends, and for our good health. As you plan for, prepare, and relish your own family’s version of a traditional Thanksgiving feast, I ask you to remember the last part—the part about the good health—and to try not to end up more stuffed than the bird this year.
Don’t approach the day with a sense of resentment, restriction and denial—on the contrary, I recommend that your give yourself license to be human. Go ahead and sample a bite of everything that appeals to you on this day. Yes, you’ll pay the proverbial piper come Friday morning, and yes, you will pick up several pounds of retained fluid, and yes, your eyes will be puffy and your rings will be tight and your waistband will dig in a little more for a day or two—but you knew all of this ahead of time.... You can minimize the damage somewhat just by being more conscious of portion size on the stuffing, the potatoes, the rolls, and the pie—in short on all the starchy and sugary things. Try to eat larger portions of the juicy turkey, the green beans and the green salad. Remember to drink plenty of water or unsweetened tea, or your diet beverage of choice.
You may even want to try to modify some of your favorite Thanksgiving recipes as we’ve done at our house. Let me give you some examples of how easy that can be and a few dietary tricks:
1. If you "candy" sweet potatoes, try cutting the sugar, molasses, or brown sugar you use by half and substituting Splenda or Sweet One, the artificial sweetener that stands up to baking temperatures.
2. Use sugar-free gelatin in place of regular Jell-O for Jell-O molds or cranberry molds.
3. Make your own bread crumbs or cubes for stuffing using Lite whole grain breads or low carb breads or make your own low carb breads from our cookbook: The Low Carb Comfort Foods cookbook.
4. Try baking a pumpkin custard pie without a crust. Just spray a non-stick coating onto a quiche or pie plate and pour the “filling” into the plate. Set it into a water bath just as you would custard and bake at the same temperature you would a custard pie. It’s done when a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. You may want to make the pumpkin custard into individual custard cups or ramekin dishes. You have better portion control this way.
5. Experiment with new vegetable dishes using vegetables with higher fiber and lower starch content. Zucchini, asparagus, cauliflower, broccoli, and green beans can round out a table that has smaller amounts of yams, mashed potatoes, and dressing to tempt you to overeat.
6. Prepare a low-carbohydrate low-calorie clear soup to serve before the main meal. Eating a good sized bowl of soup before the feast will help curb your appetite somewhat.
7. Drink plenty of non-caloric fluid or water during the meal.
8. Cut a piece of pie or cake in half before you put it on your plate. Eat only this amount.
9. Offer to help clear the dishes away immediately. If it sits there in front of you, you’ll pick and nibble while you visit.
10. Take a walk, weather permitting, after your meal.
11. Sign a pact now with yourself that you will not sit in front of the television and continue to eat. If you’d like more of something, unpark yourself and go back to the table and eat a bit more, but don’t do it in front of the TV. Even though watching the football game is part of many family Thanksgiving Day celebrations, it’s no place to eat. Unconsciously, you’ll pack away far more food than you’d ever intended to eat—and the piper awaits a bigger payment on Friday.
12. Get rid of the evidence. Freeze the leftovers, send them away with friends, and get the remnants of the feast out of your house by any means except consuming them yourself!
The Christmas Season
The Thanksgiving turkey has hardly had time to digest when the rounds of holiday parties begin. Season’s greetings! Here comes some more food: friends will bring you candy and cookies and fruitcake. Oh my! Candy and cookies and fruitcake! Oh my! Click your ruby slippers three times and repeat: There’s no place like thin! There’s no place like thin! There’s no place like thin! And try your very best not to overdo it between the two big feast days. Write yourself a pledge right now and sign it and put it up on the refrigerator door in plain sight that says: I promise not to eat more than a small piece of any Seasonal/Holiday goody until the Eve. I will save myself for the celebration and relish it all the more. After all, it’s only a couple of weeks away!
I encourage you to apply the same rules to the Christmas or Channukah feast that I outlined for Thanksgiving. Enjoy yourself but sensibly and with a tiny modicum of restraint if possible. Just like at Halloween, I recommend that you buy types of candy that you don’t especially like for stocking stuffing for the kids.
Party Tips: At most holiday receptions the spirits will flow. If you choose to imbibe, have a small glass or two of a dry bubbly or wine, or an ounce or two of distilled spirits and remember to use non-caloric mixers such as diet sodas, diet tonic, club soda, mineral water or just on the plain old rocks. Try to avoid the eggnog until the last few days of the season. Graze the buffet table in search of cold cuts, cheeses, and fresh vegetables and limit yourself to a single small serving of a sweet as a finale. Then go for the coffee or mineral water and hit the heavy conversation groups not standing in close proximity to the food spread.
Post Holiday Repair
• Try to get as many of the holiday leftovers out of the house as soon as possible and the sooner, the better. You’ll have fewer leftovers to contend with if you decrease the amount you make to start with. Make less, give away more—whatever it takes. The less of it that hangs around through New Year’s Day, the better for your diet. But this is the season of joy and light and happiness and fellowship and food and let’s face it, the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day is the single hardest diet stretch of the year!
• Begin each day with a high protein low carbohydrate meal to help get your skyrocketing insulin level down and stabilize your blood sugar. You’ll feel better and crave the fudge in that box on the counter less.
• Take at least a 15 to 20 minute walk every day. Continue with your workout routine, and better yet, increase the time and intensity through the Holiday season.
• After the holidays, rededicate yourself to your nutritional correction and metabolic control program. Get back on track. Become a purist until you get back down to your ideal weight.

	IGF-1

	protein

	low carb

[Germanat819]

Love the thread hun. Great info for everyone trying to stay on track. I however, always time my bulking cycle to coincide with the holidays. Then I point and laugh at all the dieters. lol :poke:

[Kittychick]

Same here...Im not crazy enough to think that I can really cut while its the holidays. I love food and holiday food way to much for that haha!

[Germanat819]

Originally posted by Kittychick@Dec 2 2003, 05:32 PM
I love food and holiday food way to much for that haha!

For me its the Baily's Irish Cream Whiskey. It flows like water around my family during the holidays. -_-

[littleguy]

I do have to thank skii and german for arranging the cycles around the holidays I'd be pissed if I couldn't eat what I wanted around the holidays.

[cb25]

Good post...i'd add a couple of modifications for the bodybuilder...if you don't mind me treading on your thread :)

For us, it's important to hit the turkey. If you're having a holiday meal, make sure you get protein in with each meal. I know this is obvious for us, but just to make sure you're not loading up on deserts etc...without having any benefit out of it.

Also, try splitting your meals into a couple portions. Hit up a regular sized meal right away...then come back a couple hours later, when there's cleanup going on, or when everyone else is passed out in front of the Tv...have another serving of turkey and some veggies...that way, you could be getting the same amount of calories, while spreading it out a little bit...and avoiding that food hangover that everyone else will be sleeping off.

and yea, IMO...it's crazy to try and cut during this time of the year...i don't want to knock the people who are doing it...you have my full support...but it's just easier to hit a bulker right about now and save the cutting for after the first of the year...

good post kitty!

	protein