With holiday temptations at every turn, make good food choices
The restaurant where you’re seated with your family glows from Christmas lights and tinsel. Your stomach growls and you reach for a menu. You’ve never been so hungry, even though all you’ve been doing is stuffing yourself. You glance at the menu, and the pages are blank.
A waiter comes over with his hands behind his back. He extends his arms to you with both fists closed tightly. As he uncurls the fingers of the left hand, you see nine little foil-wrapped Hershey Kisses. In the right, he has nothing because he can’t possibly hold all the food he’s about to show you in a curled up fist. Instead, he reaches behind the table and presents you with a plate of herb-crusted, Italian turkey meatloaf, a side of homemade applesauce, and a mixed-greens, house salad with a light vinaigrette. You start to salivate.
“Choose,” the waiter says. “Both meals have the same number of calories, but which will leave you more satisfied?” The waiter is a bit of a smart aleck, but he does have a point.
If all menus were presented with two columns of food choices containing a healthy meal on the right and an unhealthy meal on the left with identical calories, it would make our decisions so much easier, especially if both selections were tantalizing in their own way.
This is where the newest dieting trend, the No-Diet Diet falls short. The No-Diet, Diet says you can eat anything you want as long as you are still hungry for it. A tin of mixed nuts has almost 1,500 calories. If you sit at your desk and nibble on them until they are gone, you’ll have consumed an entire day’s worth of calories before you’ve even had a single meal.
My guess is you’ll still be hungry when lunch and dinner roll around. The No-Diet Diet would tell you its okay to keep eating as long as you’re still hungry. It assumes that the body will tell you that you feel full after it consumes the number of calories necessary to keep you going through a normal day.
That’s not an accurate premise. Otherwise, I’d be taking all my meals in the form of a single chocolate truffle.
So how does one survive the holidays with her waistline in tact? It’s okay to splurge a little during this festive time of year. And temptation will be everywhere.
Just remember that you decide which foods are available and presented in your own home, and you can decide how many calories they contain. It comes down to mindful grocery shopping.
As the holidays consume us, make a list of grocery items you enjoy eating that are healthy for you and your family. Think about every category ahead of time: snacks, beverages, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. Sounds easy, but here’s a warning. Don’t go to the store hungry, and stick to your list once you get there.
Why? The food industry is a marketing monster. I swear, blinking neon lighted packaging and chocolate-scented cardboard are next. They know what to do to get you to pick up their products off that shelf and get them into your cart. Stick to the list. And, when you see the glint of fluorescent lights off the foil-wrapped Hershey Kisses, avert your eyes and keep on rolling.