Staying on Your Diet During the Holidays

The holidays are the perfect time to try out your old favorite recipes and look for new ones. Sometimes it might seem futile to stay on your diet when there are too many temptations. But how can you get through the holiday snacking without gaining a spare tire in the process? Here are some tips for staying on your diet during the holidays.

Look Low

You probably have dozens of great dessert recipes that you know, as you put the ingredients together, are loaded with butter and/or oil. If your cookie leaves a grease stain on a paper napkin, than it likely has too much fat and calories. Sure it tastes good, but don't give yourself a heart attack when you step on the scale in the morning. Instead, look around for some low calorie recipes. You can find a ton of old favorites that have been reduced in fat, but not in taste on Cookinglight.com. Cooking Light Magazine is a great magazine to subscribe to when trying to cut calories and retain the savor of your favorite foods. It is also possible to try some experimenting with replacing some ingredients in your fat filled recipes with reduced fat options. Many times you can replace some butter or oil with the much healthier applesauce or use Splenda to cut all the sugar calories out of the recipe but not the sweetness.

Exercise

Even though the winter months are the least outside exercise friendly, you still need to find the time to include physical activity. Maybe you are stuck inside because of snowstorms or intense weather; no problem, just utilize that old treadmill that you bought with good intentions but haven't used. If you don't have any type of exercise equipment for indoors, than you may want to invest in something simple that will still get your heart rate up. You can use it when the weather gets bad so you don't have an excuse to interrupt your exercise routine. It's especially important to keep good exercising habits up in the winter to combat the winter weight gain.

Seating is everything

Quite simply don't seat yourself next to huge, colorful arrays of cookies, chips, and other snacky foods when you meet with your friends and relatives for the holidays. It's very easy to eat more than you've accounted for when the dish is right in front of you. Instead, make sure you are away from all fatty snacks. You can have some of these, of course, but always within limits. Sampling each tray may keep you in check, but for goodness sake don't sit next to it!

Main Dish

Many of the holiday events you will be attending this year will include 'special' dishes that include tons of ingredients that one should not consume in large quantities. Although this is the only time this year you will indulge in this dish, you need to make some wise decisions. First of all, decide which of the main dishes you most want and eat a single or double portion of it, but don't go back for seconds. If you know this is all you get you are more likely to savor the food at hand than you would be if you knew there were 15 lbs of it still waiting for you. So eat slowly and complement the chef.

What if…

So, what if you overindulge for a day or two? Don't give up for the entire season on your diet. Just eat a little less the next day to even it out. Most people go into hopeless mode once they break their diet, but the truth is that one day really isn't going to ruin your diet. It's the habit of "just one day" that will put you into bad habits again. So don't distress if you 'gorge' yourself for one or two days. Just get back into your habits of exercise and eating right and you will spare yourself from that extra spare.