It’s no secret that from late October to early January lie the unhealthiest yet most delicious meals of the year. The holidays within these few months are known for the two F’s: food and family. Families gather to celebrate and enjoy meals and each other’s company. For Halloween, bags of candy fill the cabinets.

At Thanksgiving, piles of turkey and dressing cover everyone’s plates. On Christmas, families wind down from the morning festivities with a nice, cozy dinner. New Year Eve rounds out the holiday months with plenty of appetizers and alcohol.

The Battle of the Bulge

Like the holidays themselves, the food that we eat on these days is there for us to enjoy, not just experience.

These holiday traditions have been a part of our culture for centuries, unchanging and dependable. Although the holidays have remained consistent over the years, society as a whole has been changing.

Our waistlines are getting bigger.

A majority of our meals are no longer home-cooked but are being picked up from the many fast food chains that line our highways. The obesity epidemic has taken over and weight loss programs have become a multi-billion dollar industry.

As portion sizes have gotten bigger, food standards have gone down. What we are eating today is both larger in size and less nutritious than what we were eating 100 years ago.

As technology has advanced and big business has taken over, meals have transitioned from being made from scratch to being manufactured on a conveyer belt.

Most of the year, we are fighting the battle of the bulge. During the holidays, we are at war with it.

Fighting Back

Despite dieting and exercising our hardest throughout the year, the holiday months of late fall and winter will undoubtedly come along and derail our success.

Although we could attempt to avoid the holiday festivities all together, the best way to make it through the many holiday feasts is to apply the same healthy eating strategies that we use throughout the year. The steps to healthy eating during the holidays are simple ones.

Use portion control

Choose vegetables and lean meats

Substitute unhealthy recipes with healthier ones

Use lower calorie and natural ingredients

Portion Control

When it comes to eating a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal that was mostly cooked by your friends and family, there is no way of knowing what ingredients were used or whether the items on the table are higher in calories and fat than what you are used to having in one of your daily meals.

The key to managing this type of situation is watching your portions. On average, a restaurant serves us twice the size of what a typical meal should be. As you follow the line at the table, be aware of how much of each food item you are putting on your plate.

Get one or two spoonfuls of all of the sides that you want. Choose meat that is baked instead of fried.

A good portion of meat in any meal is around three to six ounces.

Getting smaller portions of each item on the table allows you to taste and enjoy as much of the feast as possible without piling large amounts of each food item on your plate.

When deciding what to put on your plate, get a lot of vegetables, pick lean meat and be aware of how both of those are cooked. Steamed vegetables are going to be better for you than fried and roasted turkey is going to be leaner than a steak or a beef roast.

We may not know the caloric amounts in each food item, but we do know that the way a meal is prepared and cooked has a lot to do with how much calories and fat are in it.

When it comes to dessert, good decisions and portion control apply too. Get a little bit of everything. Make yourself a sample plate so you get just enough of each dessert to not feel like you missed out on anything.

If it’s available, always choose desserts that might have fresh fruits as a topping or ingredient. Don’t feel like you have to skip the chocolate cake though. It is the holidays and we are celebrating!

Substitute! Substitute! Substitute!

Portion control is vital to helping you eat healthy throughout the holidays but equally as important is how you cook the foods that you contribute to your family’s holiday meals.

You cannot control what others bring to the table, but you can control what you choose to contribute.

If for years you have made the same holiday recipes that are full of butter, salt and sugar, this can be the year that you change that.

There are plenty of ways to turn an unhealthy recipe into a healthy one. In some recipes, replace the margarine and butter with applesauce or yogurt. Sugar can be replaced with fruit preserves or Agave Nectar. Substitute skim milk for whole milk. Use egg whites or an egg substitute instead of whole eggs. Look at your recipe and change the portion sizes that are extraneous to your recipe. Instead of a whole cup of pecans, use a third.

Vegetables are your friend

When cooking for the holidays, use some of the healthy tips and tricks you have integrated into the way you cook all year long. A ground turkey meatloaf with lots of spinach cooked in is going to be much better for you and your holiday guests than ground beef. A turkey meatloaf recipe can call for four or more cups of spinach. Integrate vegetables into your recipes. Vegetables are often high in fiber and other nutrients that are not only good for you but also fill you up and keep you full longer.

If you’re cooking for picky guests or children, hide the vegetables in the recipes. Often times, if it’s cooked in, non-veggie eaters won’t even notice the addition of a vegetable or two in their meal.

Enjoy your healthy holidays

When it comes to eating healthy during the holidays, making good decisions during these few months can mean avoiding post-holiday weight gain and will save you from having to spend the next few months trying to get back to the healthy life you were living before Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years came along.

When it’s all over and the new year begins, be proud of making it through the holiday months as healthy as possible.

After all, this time next year you are going to do it all over again.

The holidays are meant to be enjoyed but not at the expense of you or your family’s health.

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