What Are Some Ways to Eat Healthy during the Holidays?

Here are a few simple tips to make the holiday season more healthful and less guilt ridden.

• Make realistic goals. The holiday season is not the time to place added stress on yourself by attempting to lose weight.
• Use smaller plates if available when at a buffet-style party.
• Try eating a healthy snack before going to a party to ease your hunger.
• Conversation is calorie-free, but move away from the buffet so you won’t be tempted to eat while you talk.
• Scope out the buffet before you go up to make your selections.
• Balance what you eat at parties with what you eat during the day.
• Remember that beverages contain calories as well. Alcoholic beverages, home-made punches, and chocolaty beverages tend to have sneaky calories that you may not bargain for. Consume these in moderation!
• Watch your portion sizes and take small “tastes” of high calorie dishes

5 Tips For Making Healthier Food Choices

Tip #1: Balance your calories. How many calories do you actually need every day? Here are a couple resources that will help guide you: Calorie Calculator for Women and Men; and a holistic health tracker that you can use to track what you eat and how many calories you need.

Tip #2: Enjoy your food, but eat mindfully. Take the time to fully enjoy your food while you’re eating it (instead of just devouring everything on your plate). Pay attention to hunger and fullness cues before, during and after meals. Be mindful of them and use them to tell you when you’re full. And if you happen to get full before you finish everything on your plate, that’s ok! Save it for leftovers later.

Tip #3: Avoid oversized portions. Try using a smaller plate, bowl and glass. You’ll be surprised how you naturally end up eating a little less. When you’re eating out, try splitting a dish or take home part of your meal.

Tip #4: Foods to eat more often. These are all the foods you know are good for you: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low fat dairy, etc. Make them the basis for meals and snacks. Try getting 2 cups of veggies, 1.5 cups of fruit and 3 servings of low fat dairy or lean protein each day.

Tip #5: Cut back on foods to eat less often. These are foods high in solid fats, added sugars, and salt (e.g. cakes, cookies, ice cream, pizza, fast food, sweetened drinks, etc.) Use these as an occasional treat vs. part of your daily meal intake.

Be a gluten sleuth.

Everything that goes in your mouth or touches your tongue needs to be screened for gluten. Read labels on vitamin supplements, toothpaste, mouthwash, cough medicine, and all over-the-counter medications. Talk with your pharmacist so that your prescription medications can be chosen with your special needs in mind (and look up gluten-free medicines at www.celiaccentral.org or www.celiac.com). Also, don't lick postage stamps or envelopes — the glue can contain gluten.

Choose foods labeled gluten-free (GF).

Whenever possible, choose packaged foods that are specifically labeled gluten-free (GF). Do not make the mistake of assuming that wheat-free or yeast-free means the same thing as gluten-free. Read labelscarefully, using the list of suspect ingredients as your guide. Fortunately, most supermarkets now carry a wide variety of gluten-free products, and many mainstream food companies have debuted gluten-free cereals, snacks, waffles, and other foods in the past few years.

In the Raw

“My trick is to eat as much raw food as I can. I limit my cooked food to things I really like.”

Carrot Trick

“I buy the bags of shredded carrots from the produce aisle and put them in just about everything I cook for dinner: soups, casseroles, green salads, pasta salad, Chinese food, Indian food, Thai food, meatloaf, spaghetti sauce.... They don’t have a strong carrot flavor, so they blend right in to whatever I’m cooking.”

Healthy eating

Caring for young kids can be exhausting, but eating the right foods will give you energy. If you’re breastfeeding, it will help you pass on important nutrients that your baby needs to grow up strong and healthy. And if your kids see you eating a healthy diet, they are more likely to follow your good example and do the same.

The eatwell plate shows the different types of food we need to eat – and in what proportions – to have a healthy and well-balanced diet. For adults and children over five, a diet based on the eatwell plate† is important, to make sure that we obtain the wide range of nutrients we need. Children under the age of five need a diet that is higher in fat and lower in fibre than this, but they should still have a good variety of fruit and veg.

Your kids may not like all of the same foods as you, but it’s a good idea to get them to try foods from all of the four main food groups.

What kind of foods should we eat?

Plenty of fruit and vegetables: These are a great source of vitamins, minerals and fibre – try to eat at least five portions of a variety of different fruit and vegetables every day.

Plenty of potatoes, bread, rice, pasta and other starchy foods: These are good sources of energy, vitamins and fibre and should be the main part of every meal. Older children and adults should eat wholegrain varieties whenever possible – for example brown bread and brown rice or pasta – as they are higher in fibre. Children under five should have fewer high-fibre foods than adults because these can fill up their small tummies, meaning that they don’t have room for the other foods they need to give them energy and the wide range of nutrients they need every day.

Some milk and dairy foods: Cheese, milk and yoghurt contain calcium and other nutrients. Remember, children should not be given cow’s milk as a main drink until they are over 12 months old, although you can use it when cooking for them. Once they start drinking cow’s milk, children should have whole milk (and full-fat dairy products), as lower-fat varieties won’t give them the energy they need. Children over the age of two can have lower-fat dairy products and semi-skimmed milk if they are eating well, but skimmed milk and 1% fat milk are not suitable until your child is five years old. 

Some meat, fish, eggs, beans and other sources of protein (not dairy): Choose lean meat. Make sure that foods like eggs, chicken, pork, burgers and sausages are cooked all the way through. Try to eat oily fish at least once a week.

Only have a small amount of foods and drinks that are high in fat and/or sugar: Only have a small amount of food and drinks that are high in fat and/or sugar such as biscuits, fizzy drinks, crisps and cakes.