Healthy Holiday Habits

Now that you've gotten all of your holiday shopping taken care of, it's time to think about holiday parties. Is it possible to eat healthy at a holiday party? Opinions differ, but I've come up with a few tips that I personally plan to follow this holiday season. Have some of your own? Leave them in the comments section, I'd love to hear them!

A little disclaimer about these tips. A lot of them have to do with self-control and willingness on the part of the participant. The tips are for those that want a reminder that it is possible to survive the holidays in a healthy way. If you look forward to cookie and egg-nog fueled parties all year and don't make a habit of overindulging, then enjoy! Just realize that you'll feel better if you practice: (you guessed it!) moderation.

Eat a healthy dinner before you go. Just like with grocery shopping, arriving at a holiday party really hungry can make it difficult to exert self-control. This is one I struggle with personally because I really dislike being hungry - so if I arrive at an event hungry and there aren't healthy options, I'm likely to eat unhealthy food. Make sure your dinner has plenty of veggies to fill you up as well as some healthy fats to keep you full. Which leads me to my next tip...

Bring something healthy. You may remember over the summer when I suggested bringing gazpacho to a barbeque so that you'd have something besides charred meat to enjoy. The same goes for holiday parties. Veggies and hummus are a good option, or if it's more of a dessert and drinks event, try some seasonal fruit like baked apples or spiced pears.

Limit yourself. This is a big self-control tip. If you really want to try all of the delicious goodies, try picking a few that you think you'll enjoy the most and then eating only one of each. It can be helpful to visualize all of the cookies that you plan on eating (or have eaten) either on a plate. As you reach for that sixth cookie, think about whether on a normal day you would really sit down and eat six cookies. Is it worth it? The same goes for alcoholic drinks. Alcohol in it's pure form is 7 calories per gram. I'll let you look up the calories of your favorite beer or cocktail on your own, but it's safe to say that you could easily rack up over 500 calories just by having a couple of drinks (and those calories are not going to fill you up, are likely to become fat once in your body, and may cause you to make unhealthy eating choices later in the night).

These snowmen know how to keep active during the holidays!

Know when you're going to exercise. If you've already scheduled a run for the next morning or you put in an hour at the gym earlier that day, you're more likely to make healthy choices (in my opinion). It's not much fun running with a hangover or having sore abs plus a stomach ache from overeating. I realize it can be hard to carve out time when you're busy planning for parties, so try to challenge yourself. For example, see how many crunches you can do while the cranberry nut bread is baking in the oven. And chances are you'll want to shower before attending the party anyway, so why not get sweaty with a quick workout video before hoping in?