Beat the Bulge: Make Healthy Choices this Holiday Season

Although family, presents, and the thoughts of snow capture the human mind over the holiday season, large household dinners are at the forefront. However, while these satisfying and filling meals complete the celebration of the most wonderful time of the year, we can become unaware of how much turkey and gravy or Christmas cookies we actually consume, therefore adding more calories than the daily recommendation.
“While fun times spent with family and friends are often the most cherished moments of the holiday season, these are also times when it is easy to be distracted and overlook what goes on to our plates!” said Roldana Huganir and Amey Herald, Kroger Mid-South Registered Dietitians. “Traditional holiday dishes made with creams, whole milk, sauces, butter, cheeses or gravies can add up calories quickly on the dinner plate, and pile on extra saturated fat, which is the fat recommended to limit. Also, sugary toppings, like marshmallows, brown sugar, or the whipped cream in fruit salad desserts, can seem harmless, but can add up to lots of sugar throughout the day, or the season.”
Additionally, “What is often overlooked by many is the extra snacking we do in front of the TV while watching the football game or parades,” Huganir and Herald said. Grabbing a snack at half-time of the game, or sneaking bites of food while being prepared, “the calories consumed in a day could easily topple over 4,000, which is more than the amount recommended for the average adult in a day.”
Do not be fooled, it is not only small snacking that can present the chance to add more calories than needed; helping yourself to seconds and thirds are just as big of a risk. “If we are generous with portion sizes (and who can’t resist an extra spoonful of grandma’s homemade mashed potatoes?), calories multiply even more! It is not out of the question for a generous plate of traditional holiday foods to rack up in the THOUSANDS for calories if we serve up heaping portions or go back for seconds,” Huganir and Herald said.
However, while overindulging during the holiday season is common among most, the myth claiming a significant weight gain from late November until early January is not necessarily true. You may see articles in the media suggesting that many of us gain 5 or more pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year,” said Huganir and Herald, “but they don’t provide a source for that information or if a source is given most likely it was from a survey, where people self-reported how much weight they gained, not a true scientific study.” These scientific studies, “from The New England Journal of Medicine and Nutrition Review in conjunction with Tufts University, indicate that the average weight gain during the winter holiday season is only about 1 pound.”
Moreover, while there is no way to overlook indulging in the feast waiting on the dining room table, controlling snacking, the number of helpings and portion sizes is a must. “One serving of pie is 1/7 of a 9” pie,” Huganir and Herald said, “Taking the time to measure out correct portions may seem tedious at first, but after a while, you will have trained your eye to know the correct size portion of a food.”
In conclusion, Huganir and Herald would like the public to know that many holiday food items are not necessarily completely unhealthy when prepared in a way that play to their nutritional strengths. “Turkey is high in protein and by removing the skin you can save yourself from eating extra calories, and saturated fat. And we serve so many vegetables during the holiday season but we often drown them in butter, cheese, and salt; adding calories, fat, and sodium. Sweet potatoes are a staple for the holidays and they are an excellent source of vitamin A and C, fiber, and even calcium to name a few,” they said. “Green beans don’t always have to be in a green bean casserole, they can just be roasted with mushrooms! If your family just has to have that casserole then try cooking with canola oil rather than butter and using low sodium mushroom soup mix and substituting the fried onions for a crushed herbed cracker.”
Of course, enjoying the holiday season with friends and family will be most important, but by supervising our holiday eating habits, the time can be better spent.