Holidays – Benchmarks or Stumbling Blocks for Healthy Eating?

It is February – how are you doing on the healthy eating goals you set for 2013? Are you sticking to the plan you laid out? Have you hit any stumbling blocks along the way? Do you find holidays challenging to your plan? We have recovered from the excitement of the Super Bowl and now we are looking forward to Valentines Day. It seems there is a holiday or some kind of celebration every month – New Year’s Day, Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas – to name a few. How can we use holidays to our advantage in reaching our goals?

How you approach the food challenges of holidays has a lot to due with how you view food in general. Is food your friend or your enemy? We all need food to live, but we should enjoy it. The key is to eat healthy food that tastes good and provides us with the vitamins, nutrients and energy we need to accomplish all the things we want to do. Creating a lifestyle of healthy eating involves planning ahead for all the events in our lives, including holidays.

Holidays provide us with time to spend with the people we care about and to relax. Planning what we will eat and do in advance will free up more time to socialize during the holiday. A lot of the foods we tend to associate with holidays can be heavy and full of extra calories. Many of the recipes for those foods can be adapted to include lower calorie ingredients. We can also control how many calories we take in by having small servings of heavy foods. Also remember that a holiday is one day so you can adjust what you eat the day before and after to balance what you eat during your celebration.

Include holidays in your reward system for accomplishing goals. Use them as handy benchmarks toward your success in achieving your goal of a healthier lifestyle.  Remember to make healthy food choices and focus on socializing with those you care about as you enjoy a full life.

What healthy foods do you include in your holiday celebrations? Would love to hear your comments below.

Tagged as: Family Health, Fitness, Healthy Eating, Healthy Living, Lose Weight, Weight Loss