How to Avoid Weight Gain during the Holidays and Still Eat Healthy
For some, especially if you are on a diet, how to avoid weight gain during the holidays or just through the holiday season, can be a challenge.
However eating healthy can seem like a much bigger challenge! Especially if you’ve been invited to parties and are worried that the food on offer will ruin your healthy eating efforts.
Party food can be super tempting and it can derail all of your good intentions but here’s the good news: you’re much more in control than you might think and there’s plenty you can do, to stay on track and still have fun.
Tip #1 - Plan your eating
Don't use holidays as an excuse to eat whatever you want - staying in control at parties or when on holiday, is difficult for most us especially dieters. It is so easy to get caught up in the holiday spirit and over indulge.
It is reasonable however to plan in advance to eat a little extra, but not huge extra amounts, if you want to avoid weight gain during the holidays. You will certainly gain a lot of weight if you go to a lot of parties during the holidays and indulge at each one.
Tip #2 - Don’t Save Calories And Turn Up Hungry At Parties
If you’re tempted to eat little (or nothing!) before you go out this holiday season, think again! You might assume you’ll be “saving” your calories for later but you’re more likely to be giving yourself the green light to eat a lot more than you intended. 
Also watch out for 'food pushers' more information in this article How To Say No To Food in Just 3 Easy Steps.
If you’ve ever found yourself picking up junk food in the grocery store while shopping hungry, you’ll know the negative impact it can have on your food choices. And this is why you don’t want to show up to holiday parties on an empty stomach!
Or for that matter don’t turn up starving at a restaurant either. If your party is in the evening, then eat breakfast and lunch as usual. It’s fine to leave a bit of room for festive food but you definitely don’t want to be ravenous when you turn up. This is a surefire recipe for wanting to eat everything in sight!
Eating a filling snack or small meal around 20 to 30 minutes before you leave home can be super helpful for stopping you snacking at the party. Choose something that is low in carbs too.
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Tip #3 - At a Party Sit Away From The Buffet
Really don’t trust yourself not to keep making trips to the buffet? Position yourself so that you’re not standing anywhere near it. If the food is within reach, there’s so much more potential for mindless snacking even when you’re not at all hungry especially if you casually glance at the food, remember we eat with our eyes!
Research suggests that it is in fact our eyes leading the way, our tongues merely follow.
"People's perception is typically dominated by what their eyes see", writes Charles Spence, Oxford professor of experimental psychology.
The further away you are, you are unlikely to ‘see’ the buffet and the more you have to make a conscious decision to walk over to the buffet.
Tip #4 - Don’t Restrict Yourself
Tempted to eat less or work out more in the run up to a holiday party? This can work against you as you’re more likely to overeat when you get there. You’re usually better off sticking to your normal eating and fitness plans and trying to make good food choices.
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Tip #5 - Choose Healthier Options
Wherever you are if there’s a mix of healthy and not-so-healthy choices, it’s the perfect opportunity to make sure that you can enjoy some guilt-free party foods.
Spot some crudites? Grab a handful. They’ll help to fill you up and won’t pile on the calories. Just make sure that you don’t dunk them in high calorie dips that are also likely to be loaded with fat too.
Guacamole or hummus are good choices but most other dips will be a calorie bomb.
Research suggests that you’ll eat more calories on your first trip to the buffet table so you can do yourself a big favor if you go for healthier and low calorie options then.
Tip #6 - Don’t Forget About Liquid Calories aka Alcohol!
It’s not just what you put on your plate that you need to think about - liquid calories also count and they can add up more than you think.
Alcohol and soda are empty calories and don’t add nutritional value at all. That’s not to say that you can’t drink - just be mindful of what you drink and what it’s contributing in terms of calories, sugars and so on. Also alcohol is a big sleep disruptor.
Tip #7 - Drink Water - Stay Hydrated
Try drinking a glass of water in between alcoholic drinks in particular to pace yourself and keep yourself hydrated.
That way, you can still have a tipple but you’re not going to go overboard.
Tip #8 - Eat Mindfully
It takes around 20 minutes for your stomach to let your brain know that you’re full. In that time, you could easily have eaten the equivalent of a meal without even thinking about it.
Taking a more mindful approach to your eating can help to avoid this. To start things off, when at a party, go for small helpings of the buffet food you fancy and really savor eating them.
Small bites and chewing your food thoroughly can be super helpful for this. Try 24 chews and wait 10 seconds in between) Put your knife and fork down often during eating too.
When you’re done, distract yourself for a bit. Work the room and get talking to other party guests to stop mindless snacking and check in with yourself 20 minutes later to see if you’re really still hungry. Chances are, you’ll find that you’re not.
So look out for your hunger and fullness signals and figure out when you have had enough to eat and stop when feeling satisfied!
Tip #9 - Leave Food On Your Plate
Yes it is okay to leave food on your plate, when in restaurants at party buffets and when eating at home too! Respect your body, if you are full, push your plate away from you, to signal you have finished, or at a party put your plate on a table. Don’t treat your body like a trash bin!
Tip #10 - Weighing Yourself
This can be a vital part of not putting on those pounds - weigh in when you are away and do a virtual weigh-in by sending to your weight-loss coach or accountability partner a picture of your scales. However a word of caution......
If the scales produces any of the following: anxiety, makes you question your self-worth, causes any disturbances to your emotional well-being - it’s not the right tool for you - and that’s fine too.
Trial in the British Medical Journal
According to a trial in the BMJ where in Birmingham UK a short behavioral intervention prevented weight gain over the Christmas Holiday period.
This involved participants regularly weighing themselves, weight management advice, and information about the amount of physical activity required to expend the calories in festive foods and drinks.
The reality is that when people eat and drink during the holidays they put pounds on and they don’t fully lose all the extra weight. Even if yearly gain is small, say 1 pound, those pounds soon add up and over 10 years that is an extra 10 pounds!
Tip #11 - Get Some Physical Activity
Keep moving - go to the gym - this is not the time to stop gym membership and skip going throughout the holiday season. It’s so much harder to restart afterwards - stick to your usual routine. If you are away on holiday then plan your activity - going to the gym, swimming, yoga classes, walking etc.
Tip #12 - Get Plenty Of Sleep
On paper, you might not think that the amount of sleep you get the night before will matter too much. In reality, a bad night’s sleep can mean that you eat hundreds more calories more the next day. And that’s bad news if you want to avoid calorie heavy and unhealthy party food! Try to get an early night before parties and you can cut out the potential for overeating.
The holiday season should involve self-care activities too, like meditation, hobbies etc. However, if you do overeat - forgive yourself, get back on track straight the way, there will be no harm done.
Watch out for sabotaging thoughts about ‘blowing it’ for the whole trip, which can give you license to eat out of control until you get home. However if you have stuck to your plan of staying mindful with healthy eating - then pat yourself on the back.
