Stay Slim Thru the Holidays

Hello and welcome!!  It couldn’t be a worse time of year to start a diet, get slim or to try and stay slim, it’s holiday time!  We all want to be able to eat what we want and not gain wt.  Now, some can, good for them, but for the majority of us, we have a difficult time not packing on the pounds during this time of year.

It all starts with Halloween and all the candy, then it goes into Thanksgiving, the greatest most gluttonous holiday ever invented, and goes right into Christmas and all the Christmas parties and then New Year’s and then, what’s the last unofficial holiday at the end of Jan, beginning of Feb?  That’s right, the Super Bowl!  And that doesn’t even include all of the football playoffs and college bowl games.

It’s a wonder how we are not all obese, actually if you look at the numbers for the country, we’re pretty close or at least getting closer.

My job tonight is to help you get and stay healthy and slim while educating you all on how to navigate the holiday season with the least amount of damage to your body and self esteem!!

So where do we start, what can we do to be able to go to the parties and stay in control?  Well, it’s easy, just don’t go!!  Stay home and eat baked fish and plain broccoli!!  Just kidding, kind of.

The first thing you’ll want to do, is to eat healthy before you go.  Healthy means a lot of different things to people, so let me give you a proper definition or example of a healthy meal.  Vegetables, protein and some fruit!!  Simple as that!  If you start adding in any processed foods, any bread, pasta, rice, cereal, cakes, candies and cookies or any high starch foods like white potatoes, it’s not healthy!!  So, dinner for example could be a grilled steak, sautéed green beans and roasted peppers and some berries for dessert!  This is a healthy meal, all real food.

If you are going to eat dinner at the party, you need to make wise food choices.  For the appetizers, eat the vegetables, or if they have a protein based selection eat that.  Just avoid the bread and grain based foods.

Are you getting the whole theme here, eat low carb!  It really is simple.  Just eat low carb!!

I know, you want the bad food.  I agree, I want it too!  But life is about choice, and if you choose to eat poorly, you choose obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Now some people say “everything in moderation” and for some people it works.  But for those of us who are very sensitive to carbs and sugar, there is no moderation, there’s only all or none.  In my house, an open bag of Doritos is an empty bag!!  Or of any bad food, so I have to plan my cheating, which leads me to my next point.

Feel free to indulge on occasion!  If you have a party you are really looking forward to, then plan on eating bad.  For me, it’s Thanksgiving.  We have a bunch of people over to my dad’s house, somewhere in the 40 – 50 range, I cook, because I’m funny in that I like my food to taste good, and if I’m cooking, it’s going to be good, and I’ll eat myself into oblivion.  I’ll deep fry 2 turkeys and a duck, which is for me. I’ll make upwards of 10lbs of garlic and parmesan mashed and around 5lbs of sausage stuffing.  Then, the best part is that I get my own pie.  For all this work, I get my own pecan pie, which I’ll eat over the weekend. 

Speaking of overeating, let’s talk booze!!  Booze leads to poor choices!!  Not just food choices, but poor choices overall.  But this is about food.  Booze, number one will turn right to fat!  Plus as we all know, booze will lower our inhibitions and then it’s game on!!  Look out dessert table!!

Keep your booze at bay and you’ll keep the weight off.  If you are going to booze a bit, be sure to eat first, your body will absorb it slower and it’ll have less of an affect on your decision making abilities!!

OK, so I’ve taken away sweets and booze!!  Let’s see what other pleasures I can take away now!!  Just kidding, allow me to teach you some tricks of the trade.

If you are going to eat sugar and desserts, eat fiber first.  This will slow you production of insulin, which we all know makes us fat.  Keeping your insulin under control and reasonably low is one of the keys to a long and healthy life with lower insurance premiums, less medication and less trips to the doctor!!

Plus the fiber will fill you up so you won’t be able to eat as much junk as you would have other wise.

This goes for fat as well.  Fat will suppress an insulin spike.  Do we all know what I mean by an insulin spike?  It’s when you eat carbs and your body produces a large surge of insulin which will take all the sugar out of your blood and store it as fat and make you hypoglycemic, low blood sugar, which will give you fatigue and listlessness, brain fog and for some people, headaches and then you’ll crave sugar due to the low blood sugar.  Either way, both fiber and fat will help prevent this.

This will also help with the affects of booze as well.  It’ll decrease the absorption rate, which is why you feel the effects of booze more on an empty stomach.

Again, I’m not telling you not to cheat as you see fit, but to try and help you make better choices when you do go and to cheat with the foods you really love.

So go out and enjoy your holidays and parties, and after New Year's when you want to drop those excess pounds that you've accumulated all year, just set an appointment and we'll get those ugly  and unhealthy pounds off you in no time!!

Happy Holidays Everyone!!