How to Enjoy the Holidays Guilt-Free

Whether it is at the office, or with family and friends, holiday dinners are just around the corner. Food will abound in these gatherings, especially high-calorie dishes we never get to enjoy during the other 11 months of the year.

Many articles are going around on the Web offering excellent tips to mitigate the effects of the holidays on your waistline, ranging from using smaller glasses and filling your plate with vegetables, to preparing healthy appetizers. In an ideal world, we could apply all of this advice; unfortunately, on many occasions we will feel uncomfortable to do so, or it will be outright impossible.

The most important thing is to accept that the festivities will take place, and not worry about it. Although we might think otherwise, not eating for the entire day to compensate for the night will only work against you. Simply eat as you would on any regular day regardless of the large feast awaiting you in the evening; doing so will help you feel less hungry, and therefore you will naturally tend to eat less fat, salty, and sweet food.

During the event, listen to your body, and take the time to savour the food! You will eat more than you usually do, and let me remind you that this is perfectly fine. Don’t feel guilty about a bit of overeating, and most importantly, don’t try to compensate by eating less on days without festivities. This will only put you more at risk of losing control and falling into an episode of binge eating! At this point, you’ll be stuck in a vicious spiral of deprivation/overeating.

The best strategy to enjoy guilt-free holidays is to savour everything you eat, accept that you ate more than usual, and return to your habits the next day.

Happy holidays!

Alyssa Fontaine, Dt.P., nutritionist for Zero Diet

The Zero Diet brand is first and foremost the conviction that healthy eating is a primary factor to attaining a healthy weight and a balanced lifestyle. Thus, we offer nutrition counselling with nutritionists who are members of the OPDQ with our Zero Diet nutrition program in our centers and in companies. We have also developed a healthy frozen food product line that fulfills rigorous nutritional criteria as well as two healthy Zero Diet cookbooks.

Photo credit: Pexel

How to Enjoy the Holidays Guilt-Free is a post from Nautilus Plus. The Nautilus Plus blog aims to help people in their journey to fitness through articles on training, nutrition, motivation, exercise and healthy recipes.
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