Snacking, Noshing, Tasting

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

December 9, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

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

December 7, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Just 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

December 5, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

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

12 Ways To Decrease Calories In Your Favorite Holiday Baked Goods – And They’ll Still Taste Great!

December 3, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Does your holiday season mean, among other things, baking lots of cookies: spritz, rolled, ginger bread men, meringues, powdered sugar cookies; savory and sweet breads; and whatever dessert sounds good (maybe even fruit cake – although not in my family).

If you added up the number of butter and sugar calories in all of these baked delights the total would be so staggering it would absolutely spoil their holiday deliciousness.

To lower the calories in baked goods try decreasing the amount of fat and sugar called for in the recipe. Decreasing the amount of sugar by a third doesn’t even really affect the taste – sometimes you need to experiment to see how it might affect the texture, too. Shown below are some other substitutions to try. If you have some other ideas, please head on over to Eat Out Eat Well’s Facebook page to share them.

Some Baking Substitutions To Try

1. For brownies, fruit breads, and cake-like cookies, use ¼ cup of applesauce and ¼ cup of vegetable oil or butter instead of a half cup of oil or butter – OR — replace half the butter or oil with unsweetened applesauce, pureed pumpkin, or mashed bananas. For every half-cup of oil you replace with pureed pumpkin, you’ll save more than 900 calories and 100 grams of fat — and pumpkin keeps baked goods moist.

2. Use 2 egg whites or ¼ cup egg substitute for one egg; use 3 egg whites and 1 egg yolk for 2 whole eggs.

3. Decrease the amount of sugar in your recipe by up to a half and add ginger, lemon zest, cinnamon, or cloves for some flavor. Cinnamon, in particular, adds a sweet and warm taste.

4. Substitute nonfat sweetened condensed milk for sweetened condensed milk or evaporated skim milk for evaporated milk.

5. Instead of sour cream use nonfat or reduced fat sour cream, pureed low-fat cottage cheese, or low or nonfat Greek yogurt.

6. Substitute reduced or nonfat cream cheese for cream cheese.

7. Substitute non-fat, 1%, or 2% milk for whole milk and half and half for cream. Or try using buttermilk, which is naturally low in fat. Traditional buttermilk is the liquid left behind after churning the butter out of cream.

8. Substitute 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, chopped dried fruit, or chopped nuts for 1 cup of chocolate chips.

9. Swap 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder plus 1 tablespoon of oil or water for one ounce of baking chocolate.

10. Instead of frosting use sliced fresh fruit with a dusting of powdered sugar, sweetened and flavored (vanilla, peppermint) nonfat cream cheese, or nonfat whipping cream.

11. For fruit pies, use half the sugar called for in the recipe — this saves 774 calories for every cup of sugar you don’t use.

12. Substitute part-skim ricotta cheese for cream cheese in cheesecake, which will double the protein and cut the fat by about 60 grams for each cup.

Spoon-in-the-mouth-tip: “Tastes” aren’t calorie-free. The dough from the bowl has the same number of calories as the baked cookie, cake, or bread -– and the calories add up pretty quickly. Dump the bowls and beaters into the sink as soon as you’re finished with them to help resist temptation (and constant nibbling).

Remember to head on over to Eat Out Eat Well’s Facebook page if you have other baking substitutions or swaps that you’d like to share.

Are You Ready For Holiday Eating?

November 19, 2013 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Holiday cookies, latkes, pumpkin pie, cornbread stuffing, eggnog, and a relative’s specialty of the season … food, food, food!

‘Tis the season to eat and there are “food landmines” everywhere you turn. We all have to eat but it can be a very slippery slope to eat well surrounded by food; family; friends; an encyclopedia of cultural, religious, and family traditions; and a whole host of expectations.

Holidays are supposed to be days of celebration and special significance — often religious, cultural, or traditional. Sometimes, they’re days just meant for play. A common denominator is that we often incorporate food – and lots of it — into celebrations.

Realistically, the actual content of your Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, or other holiday meal matters very little in the grand scheme of things. Although a few hundred calories here or there can make a difference when added up over weeks and years, the impact of overeating at one meal is usually negligible – even though your stomach might be singing a different song.

It’s the inevitable mindless eating – those treats on the receptionist’s desk, the gift of peanut brittle, the holiday toasts, the second and third helpings, the holiday cookies in the snack room – that are the main source of excess calories and added pounds during the holiday season.

What To Do

See it = eat it. It‘s incredibly difficult not to nibble your way through the day when you have delicious treats tempting you at every turn. How many times do your senses need to be assaulted by the sight of sparkly cookies and the holiday scent of eggnog or spiced roasted nuts before your hand reaches out and the treat is popped into your mouth?

Don’t keep your trigger foods stocked in your pantry or fridge. If you need to have supplies, don’t make them immediately visible. Hide them in the back of the cabinet or in a “not too easy to be reached” location.

Be aware of openly displayed platters and bowls of cookies, nuts, candy, and other holiday specialties. Make up your mind that it’s not okay – just because it’s the holidays – to taste test everything that crosses your path.