Fall is in the air! It’s only weeks before kids will be knocking on doors in their Halloween costumes. Then we’ll be jumping into Thanksgiving, Christmas parties, family events, and other fun holiday traditions. The holidays are a time for creating memories and enjoying a balanced life. They don’t have to also be a time of regretting the scale jumping up and having to detox from way too much junk food every New Year. Below are several tips for how to eat healthy over Christmas.
These tips can be applied for other events too, such as vacations, birthday parties, and other holidays. If you know there’s a special event coming up, you can plan ahead and take steps to help you navigate the treats and delicious meals in a way that you can both enjoy and still make healthy choices.
Living a Balanced Life
I am not going to tell you to skip all the holiday goodies! The H₂O Life is all about finding a healthy balance, enjoying life and living a healthy lifestyle to help you live life to the fullest. Unless we are on a specific challenge, we usually eat one free meal each week. This can be a date night to a Japanese restaurant, homemade biscuits and gravy, or simply not having to be strict at a birthday party.
Prioritize What You Enjoy the Most
One of the most important tips is to prioritize what you enjoy eating. A lot of people eat junk food at a party because it’s the food that’s available. They might not enjoy the hamburger bun or the chips, but they eat it because that’s what’s there.
For me, when we have a summer family event with BBQ and chips and dessert, I’m all about the BBQ and the dessert! I’m actually just as happy with the BBQ on a low-carb wrap or over spinach as a salad. I don’t miss the bun or the chips if I just skip it.
Sitting by watching everyone else eat icecream cake or a chocolatey dessert, on the other hand, would make me feel like I totally missed out. So, I’ll do my wrap or salad, maybe add some homemade Alabama white sauce on top (because it’s delicious!) and eat a little dessert. For me, that’s a free meal I enjoy, but I’m not adding extra calories with foods I don’t even really like.
Being strategic about when you eat free foods and which ones you choose is super important. I’ve had meals at restaurants and decided after the fact that they weren’t worth eating as a free meal. I would have rather had my usual healthy food at home.
Rusty has even saved a piece of cake at work that looked delicious and eaten it as part of his planned free meal that Friday night. That kept him from having multiple free meals, and it gave him something yummy to look forward to and enjoy.
Plan Ahead
If you go to a party hungry, you’re going to be ready to eat whatever they put in front of you. You can get ahead of the game by eating something you enjoy right before the event or bringing a snack with you. I’ve done both of these before.
I’ve drunk a chocolate smoothie on the way to birthday parties, so I wasn’t even hungry when they pulled out the store-bought cake. This week, I fixed an afternoon coffee and took my son to pick up a treat and frozen lemonade at a local coffee-shop. I didn’t even want anything for me, and I would have totally bought myself a drink if I hadn’t just had a mug of fresh coffee.
You can also bring something to the party. This can look a few different ways. It can mean pulling out a dessert-flavored protein bar to eat while everyone else is eating cake. It can mean bringing something you love to a potluck. At our church covered dish, I’ve started bringing a side vegetable like green beans in broth and a piece of homemade bread from home. Then, the only thing I still need to make a perfect plate is to add a protein and skip dessert. For more information on how to make a perfect plate, click here. When you have something you enjoy to eat, it’s a lot easier to choose that over any random food that is available.
How to Prepare Your Body for Christmas Dinner
What if you know your family’s big Christmas dinner is tomorrow night or you have an event and you have no intention of eating a protein bar in place of the feast being served? There are a few ways you can help your body get ready ahead of time. The day leading to the event, you can eat low-carb or even fast meals leading up to that meal. This will help your overall carbs stay lower and not be such a surplus to your normal eating routine. If you decide to fast, make sure you still drink plenty of water so you have the hydration your body needs.
You can plan your workouts so that you’re consuming carbs at the ideal time. Having a huge feast on a day you skip your workout is not ideal. Weight workouts are especially good because the food you eat right after a weight workout is used to rebuild your muscles and help your body recover from the workout. Your body is more forgiving right after you’ve gotten in a good workout. If you can squeeze in a workout right before a free meal, that food can actually help you accomplish your goals of building muscle instead of work against you.
In my experience, I’ve found that a single meal doesn’t seem to throw off my healthy eating routine or effect the scale an extreme amount. It’s when I have several meals stacked in a row that I start to have issues. This can happen if you’re on a cruise or a week-long vacation. However, if you plan for a single event, like Christmas breakfast, it can be a free meal you enjoy instead of days of bad eating choices.
How to Eat Healthy at Christmas When There Are Treats Everywhere
If you’re like me, I will eat the mint chocolate dessert until the last bite is gone. It doesn’t matter if it takes me days, I am fully committed so that none of this delicious treat goes to waste. If you don’t bring leftovers home, or you only bring enough for the family to eat on one more time, you avoid this scenario completely.
Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean there has to be candy in jars throughout your home. Your house can be one place that isn’t full of holiday temptations except on days you plan for it and want to enjoy it. You can still do hot chocolate on the night you take the kids to look at Christmas lights or bake homemade goodies the week of Christmas.
The issue arises when these little treats are around every single day throughout the months of November and December. I feel like special treats lose part of their spark of making a memory when they are enjoyed night-and-day for two solid months anyway. When you plan for those moments, it can truly be a special memory.
I realize some memories are spontaneous and just happen! You can’t plan for everything. Christmas and the holidays are one of those times when being super strict can cause you to miss out on a balanced life and enjoying time with others. A healthy life is about finding that balance, not just being super strict all the time. However, bringing home leftovers and saturating your house with sugar-filled, processed foods does not set up anyone in your family for success.
Think Twice Before Grabbing a To-Go Box
The same can be true for to-go boxes from eating out. I love eating out at a restaurant and enjoying the best they have to offer. I’ve found that bringing my leftovers home isn’t quite the same. Just because the night before was a free meal doesn’t mean I want to eat on it again the next day. Most of the time, I enjoyed that meal and I’m ready to hop right back into my normal routine the next morning.
Sharing the leftovers with the kids or freezing it for another time are two options. Sometimes it’s okay to just throw the leftovers away. If you fully enjoyed the meal the first time, it’s not wasteful to chunk the leftovers and start the day fresh.
Swap Things You Love for Healthier Alternatives
Something else that can help you navigate the holidays and life in general is to figure out healthier options you enjoy. Most meals can be tweaked to become healthy options you can eat on plan. You can swap breads, sugars, and flours for healthier alternatives and experiment with new recipes. The holidays is the perfect time to keep some Homemade Perfect Bars or Coconut Chocolate Energy Bites on hand. Lilly’s chocolate has things like peanut butter cups without sugar. There are so many recipes you can try for healthy snacks and treats, or you can tweak a favorite recipe yourself. Having something you enjoy can help you avoid the feeling of missing out when others are enjoying goodies.
Finding the Perfect Balance to How to Eat Healthy Over Christmas
Ultimately, life is all about finding that perfect balance. Just remember, the holidays come every year. Most people treat it as a time when eating healthy flies off the rails and then January is the dreaded cut-back time. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can find balance even while enjoying family dinners and holiday treats. A free meal doesn’t have to be something you regret; it can be something you plan for and fully enjoy.
The holidays can be busy, filled with the rush of decorating, baking, gift shopping, and travelling to visit family and friends. More than likely, it will take you out of the normal routine of workouts and eating that you’re used to. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing though.
Just Remember These Tips for How to Eat Healthy Over Christmas
-What events can you plan as a free meal?
-How can you maximize the health benefits of a free meal: prioritize what you truly enjoy, eat lower carb or even fast leading up to the event, and get a solid workout in that day?
-When are you just as content eating something on-plan, whether you fill up on the way so you’re not even hungry or you have something on-plan while everybody else is eating junk food?
-How can you make your home a safe-haven, where you can enjoy free meals but not be constantly bombarded with junk food?
If you feel like you’re always missing out and are stuck with food you don’t enjoy, you won’t maintain it in the long-run. The key is to find a balance for your life. Christmas comes every year. There will always be birthdays, vacations, and holidays to enjoy, events that take us out of our routines. The important thing is to learn how to navigate those in a way that is healthy and to still enjoy those special moments life brings us!
