Christmas is a wonderfully decadent holiday wherein you eat special holiday foods that you associate with your lifetime of Christmas memories. However, almost all Christmas foods are calorie-dense and higher in fat compared with your daily diet. Furthermore, the abundance of holiday parties and the food therein throughout the Christmas season contribute to further departure from your healthy lifestyle. Planning for a healthy, cleansing post-Christmas diet helps to reinvigorate your energy and restore you quickly to your healthy eating habits.
Cut Carbs
One of the biggest changes in your diet over Christmas is the increase in the daily intake of sugar via the consumption of candy, cookies and sweet drinks. Removing excess sugar from your diet will significantly reduce your cravings for sweets and restore normalized blood sugar levels. Try freezing any remaining cookies or candy, thus forcing your treats to defrost prior to eating them. This will give you time to consider your choices and help you to overcome impulse eating. Also, alter your recipes to decrease your refined flour intake by substituting whole grain pasta and bread and brown rice for the lower-fiber options.
Increase Vegetables
Few traditional Christmas treats involve vegetables. Furthermore, because you substituted food at a party for multiple meals, your daily intake of healthy fiber has been significantly reduced, and you may find yourself feeling bloated and constipated. Increasing your raw vegetable intake to at least three cups per day will facilitate bowel regularity. Consider flavoring your vegetables with low fat or nonfat salad dressing or with almond butter. Avoid high fat or carb-packed condiment options.
Reinstate Regular Meal Times
Eating smaller meals of about 200 to 300 calories per meal throughout the day, approximately three hours apart, will help you control your cravings and stabilize your blood sugar levels. Make sure to start your day with 10 to 15 g of protein and finish your day with a small serving of protein about 30 minutes before bed. This use of protein will jump-start your metabolism at the start of the day and facilitate increased metabolism while you sleep. For breakfast, consider a whole-grain English muffin with an egg or a piece of turkey sausage, both yielding around 200 calories and 10 to 13 g of protein. Prior to bedtime, eat one serving of low-fat cottage cheese, unsweetened almonds or flavored tuna.
Drink Water
Increase your daily water intake significantly after Christmas to flush out toxins and to help increase your regularity. General recommendations for water intake average around a half gallon per day. However, after Christmas, increase your water intake to three quarts or one full gallon. Resist the temptation to add flavor packets to your water that may contain sodium, which will dehydrate you, and artificial sweeteners, which can bloat you and increase your cravings for sweets. Rather, consider making decaffeinated iced tea with little or no sugar to improve your daily hydration, as well as add antioxidants to your beverage.
Plan and Be Realistic
Many people consider severe dieting to be an appropriate response after holiday binging. However, this approach will not yield long-term weight loss and may actually encourage your body to hold onto unwanted holiday pounds. Restoring a balanced, healthy lifestyle, including increased daily exercise, will lead you back to your healthy pre-Christmas weight. Take time before the holidays to plan a healthy menu so that you can be excited to try healthy recipes after the Christmas season.
Member Comments