12 Tips to Help You Keep the Pounds Off But Still Enjoy the Holidays

You've heard it said that you shouldn't go grocery shopping when you're hungry because you buy things you usually would pass by. The same principle applies to Christmas and New Year's parties. Don't try to solve the problem of eating at holiday parties by starving yourself the day of the event. You're setting yourself up to have a binge around the food table. Some suggest that you should eat the same as you do any other day, regular meals and even a healthy snack before leaving for the party. Start the party with a few of the healthier choices, like fruit, then let yourself have a few of your favorites.

If you've been eating healthy for a while, suddenly overdoing it on foods with extra salt, sugar, and fat may cause you to wake up not only heavier, but feeling sick and lethargic the next day. If you try to keep that in mind, you may be less tempted to indulge too much.

Here are 12 ways to enjoy some of your favorite foods during Christmas and New Year's without packing on the pounds:

1. Before you head to a party or special meal, drink a glass of V-8 juice or tomato juice, or even just a big glass of water, maybe with a little lemon squeezed in, so that you do not feel empty when confronted with tables full of goodies.

2. If possible start the meal by eating salad or other veggies before you taste the more fattening choices. Buffet style restaurants place the salad bar first so that you fill up on the least expensive foods. They do it for their benefit, but it's also a healthy way to begin a fattening meal.

3. If you are asked to bring a dish, make it something you know you can enjoy without filling up on fatty foods. Like fresh veggies and some low-fat dip, or sliced fruit.

4. If offered a choice of plates, take a smaller one. It's a mind game that works. You can fill it to the edges and think you're getting more than you really are.

5. Better still, when visiting the appetizer table, use a napkin instead of a plate. Put just a few on your napkin and then walk away.

6. Weight Watchers suggests you do not deliberately wear loose clothing. People joke about wearing elastic-waist pants to a big meal so they can eat more, but that joke is based in reality. Instead, wear something that will bind a little if you overdo it, or at least buckle your belt a notch tighter than usual to give you the illusion of being over-full.

7. Don't let your fitness schedule go during the holidays. If you don't have time to do your regular routine, commit to spending at least ten minutes walking or doing other exercise. And if time is a factor, skip the gym and do some kind of workout or brisk walk at home. You can probably do ten or fifteen minutes of exercise in the time it would take you to drive to the gym and get inside. This way, you're less likely to let time pressure be your excuse. Weight Watchers suggests that during heavy-eating weeks, you increase your weight or resistance training. That type of exercise increases the metabolic rate of your muscle tissue.

8. Of course you know that drinking lots of water is always important, but even more so when you are consuming extra salt and fat. Flushing it out of your system will help you stay healthier and help with weight control.

9. Instead of a glass of wine, ask for a wine spritzer, which is half wine and half seltzer. That not only limits the calories, but also the effect of the alcohol. Or if it's available, have a flavored seltzer. Choose wisely, for example, a gin and tonic has about 155 calories, while a strawberry daiquiri has triple that amount. If you're trying to avoid alcohol altogether but don't want to appear stuffy, when the hostess asks if you'd like a drink answer "I'd love a glass of ice water." That way you just sound more parched than snobbish.

10. Continue to keep track of everything you eat, no matter what. They say recording your behavior changes what you do. Even if you tell yourself that anything goes and you will splurge to your heart's content, keeping written track will likely foil your plan to pig out.

11 Save your indulgences for your favorite holiday treats, rather than loading up on some of everything. If Aunt Betty's chocolate caramel Christmas cookies are your favorite and they are only around at Christmas, why fill up on store-bought treats or foods that are delicious, but easily available the rest of the year? Hold out for the two or three things you love most.

12. You can get a variety of baked goods for your family without the temptation brought on by baking them all yourself. Here's how: Host a cookie party. Each guest brings batch of his or her favorite homemade cookies or candies, and the recipe. Guests all take home a variety of the goodies for their families, some new recipes, and the need to do a lot of baking is bypassed.