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Eating with Family and Friends

Holiday Eating Worries? If You’re Going To Indulge, Make It Special

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unhappy Santa on scaleHiRes copy

 

 

Is holiday food everywhere?  Are you tempted to eat everything?

Here are a couple of helpful hints:

Say “no thank you” to the rolls, the mashed potatoes, and the ice cream.  You can have them any time of the year. Spend your extra calories on something special that’s specific to the holidays.  Also say “no thank you” to the food pushers who persist in trying to get you to eat more. Have some polite excuses ready to use.

Keep in mind that a holiday is 24 hours — just like any other day, except that you’ll most likely encounter more food challenges. Be selective.  Pass on the muffins at breakfast and save your indulgences for the big meal. Try not to eat a separate meal while you’re preparing “the meal”  — it’s all too easy to taste hundreds of calories while you’re cooking (and cleaning up)!

For more helpful hints download my book from Amazon:  30 Ways To Eat Your Holiday Favorites And Still Get Into Your Jeans.

And

New from iTunes:  Eat Out Eat Well magazine for iPhones and iPads. Head on over and take a look!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Holiday Gift

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book-cover-free-downloadJust in time for the crunch of the holiday season —

My new book — 30 Ways to Eat Your Holiday Favorites and Still Get Into Your Jeans — is available as a free download for your kindle or kindle reader this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (12/7 – 12/9).

The book is filled with useful and practical tips and info to help you navigate your way through the holiday season with your waistline intact and your belly happy.

Head on over to Amazon to download your free gift — and please share this info with anyone else who might be interested.

I hope you enjoy the book.  I would greatly appreciate it if you would leave a review on Amazon.

Enjoy the holiday season.

Your Holiday Eating Cheat Sheet

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holiday-eating-cheat-sheet

Are you feeling some holiday pressure? Are you, along with lots of family and friends, jumping into entertaining and cooking mode?

Is food a good antidote to all of that stress (at least in the moment)?  What about the pressure – subtle and sometimes not so subtle – to eat everything that’s set out on the table by those close to you?

Then there’s the anger/guilt about eating way too much – and then repeating the whole process.

Consider These Ideas:

  • Don’t feel obliged to eat out of courtesy – especially if you don’t want the food or you’re full –because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.  Get over it – the calories are going into your mouth, not theirs.
  • Give yourself permission to NOT eat something just because it’s tradition. Whose tradition?
  • Only eat it if you want it. Eat what you want not what you think you should.
  • Say no to the friend or relative who is pushing the extra piece of pie. You’re the one stepping on the scale or zipping up your jeans the next day – not them.
  • Have some personal rules and commit to them.  An example might be:  I really want pecan pie for dessert so I’ll have only one biscuit without butter with my meal.
  • Make a deal (with yourself) that you can eat what you want during dinner. Put the food on your plate and enjoy every last morsel. Clean your plate if you want to. But – that’s it. No seconds and no double-decking the plate.
  • Make trades. Trade the biscuit and butter for wine with dinner. Limit the hors d’oeuvres. They really pack in calories. Make eating one or two your rule.
  • Choose your beverages wisely.  Alcohol adds calories (7 calories/gram). Alcohol with mixers adds even more calories. Plus, alcohol takes the edge off lots of things – including your ability to stick to your plan.
  • Drink water. It fills you up. Have a diet soda if you want. If you’re going to drink alcohol, try limiting the amount – think about alternating with water, seltzer, or unsweetened beverages.
  • Control your environment. Don’t hang around the buffet table or stand next to the platter of delicious whatevers. Why are you tempting yourself?
  • Talk to someone. It’s hard to shove food in your mouth when you’re talking.
  • Get rid of leftovers. Leftover stuffing has defeated the best-laid plans.
  • Don’t nibble during clean up (or preparation for that matter). Broken cookies, pieces of piecrust, and the last spoonsful of stuffing haven’t magically lost their calories.
  • Don’t starve yourself the day of a grand meal. If you do in an attempt to save up calories for a splurge, you’ll probably be so hungry by the time dinner is ready you’ll end up shoving food into your mouth faster than you can say turkey.
  • If you end up overeating, add in some longer walks and a couple of days of moderate eating afterward.

Do you want some more really helpful (and sometimes humorous) info about the holidays and holiday eating?  Check these out:

New on Amazon:  30 Ways to Eat Your Holiday Favorites and Still Get Into Your Jeans

Available from the iTunes store:  Eat Out Eat Well magazine

 

How Many Calories Are In Typical Thanksgiving And Hanukkah Foods?

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turkey in a chair

What was on the menu for the 50 English colonists and 90 Wampanoag American Indian men at the first Thanksgiving dinner on record (the first official Thanksgiving didn’t happen until two centuries later)? Since it was harvest time in October 1621 in the Plimoth (Plymouth) Colony, in what is now Massachusetts, for the celebration:

  • the Wampanoag killed five deer
  • the colonists shot wild fowl — maybe some geese, ducks, or turkeys
  • some form of Indian corn was served and probably some squash, carrots, and peas
  • the feast was likely supplemented with fish, lobster, clams, nuts, wheat flour, and pumpkin.

Calories In Today’s Thanksgiving And Hanukkah Foods

Most extra holiday calories don’t come from the “day of” holiday meal but from unrelenting nibbling over the holiday season – and the nibbling isn’t on the same type of food served at the first Thanksgiving dinner.

Guessing at calories can really fool you — being informed can help you to make good choices, food swaps, and trades. A “know before you go” strategy is a big help for making well thought out choices – which will leave room for some of your favorite holiday treats.

Here’s a sampling of the calories in some traditional Thanksgiving and Hanukkah foods. The calories are for an average serving and are estimates.  Recipes all vary, these are ballpark numbers.

Appetizers:

Mixed nuts, 1oz:  170 calories

Candied pecans, 1oz: 139 calories

Cheese ball, 1oz: 110 calories

Selection of raw vegetables, 8 ounces:  75 calories

Sour cream and onion dip, 2 tablespoons: 60 calories

Deviled egg, ½ of an egg: 59 calories

Stuffed mushrooms, 6 small:  386 calories

Shrimp with cocktail sauce, 3 shrimp:  30 calories

Jell-O mold salad, ½ cup: 103 calories

Pigs in blankets, one homemade: 46 calories

Triscuit, 6 crackers:  120 calories

Main Course:

Turkey, 3.5 ounce serving (about the size and thickness of a new deck of cards):

  • Breast with skin: 194 calories
  • Breast without skin:  161 calories
  • Wing with skin: 238 calories
  • Leg with skin:  213 calories
  • Dark meat with skin:  232 calories
  • Dark meat without skin:  192 calories
  • Skin only:  482 calories; 44g fat

Smithfield ham, center slice, 4 ounces:  180 calories

Prime Rib roast:  8oz:  450 calories

Roasted Brussels sprouts with olive oil, 10 half sprouts:  80 calories

Dinner roll, 1 small: 87

Butter, 1 pat: 36

Cheesy corn bread, 2″ X 2″: 96

Turkey, white meat, 4 ounces: 180

Turkey, dark meat, 4 ounces: 323

Turkey gravy, 1/4 cup: 50

Stuffing, 1/2 cup: 190

Mashed potatoes, 1 cup: 190

Candied Yams, 1/2 cup:  210

Sweet potato casserole, 3/4 cup: 624

Honey glazed carrots, 1/2 cup: 45

Green beans almandine, 1/2 cup: 220

Green bean casserole, 1/2 cup: 75

Peas and pearl onions, 1/2 cup: 40

Jellied Cranberry Sauce, 1/4 cup: 110

Cranberry relish, 1/2 cup: 76

Dessert:


Pumpkin pie, 1/8 of a 9″ pie: 316

Apple pie, 1/8 of a 9″ pie: 411

Pecan pie, 1/8 of a 9″ pie: 503

Vanilla ice cream, 1/2 cup: 145

Chocolate cream pie, 1 large slice: 535

Baked apple, 1 apple: 182

Tea, brewed, 8 ounces: 2

Coffee, black: 10 ounces: 5

Coffee with cream and sugar, 10 ounces: 120

Coffee with Baileys Irish Cream and sugar, 10 ounces: 186

Calories In Typical Hanukkah Foods

Applesauce, sweetened, ½ cup:  95

Applesauce (unsweetened), ½ cup:  50

Fried potato latke, 2oz:  200

Fried, cheese-filled blintz, 1 medium:  340

Baked jelly-filled sufganiyot, 2 inches:  115

Fried jelly-filled sufganiyot, 2 inches:  300

Almond Mandelbrot, ¼ inch slice:  45

Rugelach, 1 cookie:  100

Do Holidays And Overeating Go Hand In Hand?

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holiday-spoons-clotheslineWhat’s your favorite holiday food?  How much of it do you eat?

A lot of us actually plan to overeat during the holidays – although we may not admit it:  think about it — do you know that you’re going to overeat?  Do you think it wouldn’t be normal or celebratory if you didn’t overindulge and eat three desserts at Christmas or double helpings of stuffing and sweet potato casserole on Thanksgiving?

It’s all too easy to do that.  Food is absolutely everywhere.  It’s there for the taking — and most of the time, holiday food is free (and in your face) at parties, on receptionist’s desks, as sample tastes while you shop.  How can you pass it up?

On top of it all, it’s sugary, fatty, and pretty.  How can you not try it?  Of course, sugary and fatty (salty, too) means you just crave more and more.   Do you really need it?  Do you even really want it?  If you eat it, will you feel awful later on?

Are you eating because of tradition – because you’ve been eating the same food during the holiday season since you were a kid?  Maybe you don’t even like the food anymore or it disagrees with you.  So why are you eating it?  Who’s forcing you to?

Do you think you won’t have a good time or you’ll be labeled Scrooge, Grinch, a party pooper, or offend your mother-in-law if you don’t eat everything in sight?  Really?

You can still love the holidays and you can still love the food. In the grand scheme of things overeating on one day isn’t such a big deal.  Overeating for multiple days that turn into weeks and then months can be become a bit and weighty deal.

The question is:  do you really want to overeat?  If you do, fine.  Enjoy every morsel and then take a nap.  Tomorrow is another day.  Just know that you don’t have to.  You make the decisions about what goes into your mouth.  Make thoughtful choices and enjoy them along with everything else the holiday represents.

What To Do

  • Have a plan. Think about how you want to handle yourself in the face of food, family, eggnog, and pecan pie.  Nothing is engraved in stone but if you have an idea about what you want to do and how to do it you’ll be far less likely to nibble and nosh all day and night. You’re the one in charge of what goes into your mouth.
  • Visualize the situation that you might find yourself in. What do you want the outcome to be? Rehearse, in your mind, how you’ll respond or behave to successfully navigate the eating challenges. Sports coaches use this technique to prepare their athletes to anticipate what might happen and to practice how to respond. Sports performance improves with visualization exercises—so can eating behavior.
  • Make sure your plan is workable and realistic for what you’re aiming to achieve over the season.  The plan doesn’t have to be complex – just decide what you want to do and what steps you need to get there.
  • Write it down –even if it’s on a napkin.  It will both reinforce your intentions and act as a measure of accountability.
  • Consider what your surroundings will be.  Will your plan work for you – it may sound great, but is it doable for the situations you might find yourself in?  Will your host insist you try her special dessert and refuse to take no for an answer? Will you be eating in a restaurant known for its homemade breads or phenomenal wine list? Are your dining companions picky eaters, foodies, or fast food junkies? What will you do in these situations?
  • Armed with your rehearsed plan, go out, use it, and stick to it as best you can. You assume control, not the circumstances and not the food.  You are in charge of what food and how much of it will go into your mouth.

Do you have an ipad or an iphone?  Maybe both?  Check out Eat Out Eat Well Magazine coming soon to the Apple Newsstand.