4 Last Minute Holiday Dinner Survival Tips

1. Eat breakfast!
Starting the day with a healthy meal rich in fiber and protein will help "normalize" your appetite for the day. Peanut butter on whole wheat toast with orange slices on the side is a quick easy way to fortify yourself for the busy day ahead. Please don't "starve" yourself in preparation for the main meal of the day. You are more likely to load up on snacks and drinks before dinner if you haven't eaten all day.

2. Take a walk....while the bird is in the oven or after the big dinner - or both! Getting out in the fresh air even for 10 minutes will make you feel like you have "done something healthy" on a day full of indulgences - and you will be right! If you are someone who has a regular exercise daily exercise routine, try to stick to it.

3. Plan in advance!  This is the key to every single wellness success:  plan what choice you will make before you are faced with something that tempts you to veer from your healthy lifestyle program.  Thanksgiving Day Dinner may not be the time or place to try to lose weight, but it can certainly be a time when you follow a strategy for making wise choices: eat small portions of the foods you really love...sit back and relax... and then decide if you really want seconds or can be content to wait for leftovers at the next meal.  Practice saying "no thank you " if you know you will be around someone who may push tempting foods your way.  And finally, plan to go back to "normal" eating the next day because it's very easy to let this first holiday meal turn into a season of binging on high calorie, high fat treats.

4. Enjoy!   Celebrate whatever the day brings to you in terms of family or  friends or solitude -  give thanks for the good things in your life. Conversation, play, sharing, creating memories or reflecting on them - these are the calorie-free things that we can all focus on at Thanksgiving !

Need more ideas?  Click here for more tips for holiday survival from WebMD.

Happy Thanksgiving!

And the Holiday Food Season Begins!

There is no question that the next six weeks will be focused on people's favorite foods more than at any other time of year. It can be a season that destroys the healthy eating plan of even the most conscientious among us.

Ever wonder how many calories are consumed in the traditional Thanksgiving dinner? Well - making allowances for food choices and preferences - more than 2000 is average for Americans. Yes, that's in one meal - not the whole day! And that's with good old "healthy" turkey as the centerpiece of the meal.
 

                                     

Click here to find out how far you'd have to walk to burn off the calories in your Thanksgiving meal - I did and found out my meal of choice weighed in at 2130 calories: requiring about 20 miles of walking to burn it all off! As you can imagine, I am not likely to do that after cooking, and consuming the feast.

Remembering that 2000 calories is the daily recommendation for young healthy weight adults (and 1600-1800 is the recommendation if you are older, a middle aged woman or overweight), the trick is to figure out how to enjoy the flavors and goodies that we love during the holidays without taking in twice the calories, fat, and sugar that we want to.

Simple swaps and changes to lighten up the turkey dinner include:

• Choose white meat instead of dark and save almost 200 calories.
• Make stuffing with whole wheat bread and olive oil instead of butter.
• use fat-free mushroom soup to make your green bean casserole and sauteed onions instead of the canned fried ones.
• Make gravy with canned fat-free broth instead of the drippings from the bird.
• If you are having bread stuffing, skip the dinner rolls.
• For dessert, have a slice of pumpkin pie instead of pecan pie and save 140 calories.
• Watch portion sizes! Having a small serving of  your very favorite dishes instead of heaping your plate with everything offered will leave you  feeling unstuffed, but satisfied at the end of the meal.

MSNBC has even more ideas in this video http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21870864/ns/today-today_holiday_guide

Mom Was Right...Most of the Time

The other day I saw an ad that had a large stalk of broccoli with the phrase "Mom Was Right" printed across it. An effective ad for getting the message across that we need to eat green vegetables!  Moms have always told their kids "Eat Your Vegetables" and sure enough, Mom was right  about that. The FDA, the American Cancer Society, and nearly every other health agency urges us to EAT 5 A DAY  - at least 5 servings of colorful vegetables and fruits for good health.  Can I stress that 5 really should be a minimum? And that because a serving is usually 1/2 to 1 cup , it's really not hard to get more than that in one day.

Benefits of eating more veggies are numerous:  they should be the primary source for most of our vitamins and minerals - especially trace ones - rather than relying on vitamin-fortified juices and packaged foods. Vegetables, especially the dark leafy ones are literally "brain food" - that's how important they are to our development. In addition, most vegetables add valuable fiber to our diets - fiber that keeps our digestive tract operating smoothly.

Now let me get on my fast food soapbox for a minute and stress that the limp piece of iceberg lettuce on your fast food burger, hardly counts as one of your servings of vegetables.  Nor do the french fries. In this blog-o-sphere, french fries ( and yes, I love them too) are a "once in while snack" - like carnival food....not be counted on as a nutrient.

Your "five a day" should be real food munched raw, or cooked with a minimum of alteration: steam, bake or microwave - even stir fry - carrots, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, chard, green beans, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers and squash to your heart's content. What you get in return is vitality, weight control, and lowered risk for diabetes and several  forms of cancer.

Now the one "mom-ism" I take exception too is "Clean Your Plate".  After all, this blog is focused on healthy weight. Many of us grew up around dinner tables where starchy foods were piled on our plates and we weren't permitted to leave the table until every bit was gone. (OK, I admit, this is also the reason some people think they don't like vegetables: I remember pushing peas around the rim of my plate for what felt like hours!) However, the best rule for finishing your meal in a healthy way is to pay attention to your hunger cues. Eat slowly and notice when you are starting to feel full. If you are full, you are finished..even if there is still food on the plate. That's the healthy weight way to monitor exercise portion control.