No matter what you eat or drink during a holiday get-together, avoid beating yourself up for cheating on your, otherwise, healthy diet. Typical holiday foods are full of unnecessary chemicals and calories that can slow you down and make you feel guilty the next morning.
You can enjoy holiday gatherings by simply eating more responsibly. During the holidays, we all tend to eat or drink a little more than we should, and we eat things we typically don’t eat or drink, like cakes, cookies, and alcohol.
There are ways to survive holiday feasts without unbuttoning your pants. Here are some tips on how to eat, drink, and be merry without paying a high health price.
Keep Your Belly Full Of Water
It’s important to drink plenty of water during the holidays. It’s easy to forget to drink water when the temperatures are cold outside and if you have fluffy holiday drinks to choose from, but drinking sufficient water will help detox you and curb your cravings for sweets.
Drinking lots of water can often satisfy your hunger when the foods that you normally wouldn’t eat are on the holiday table. Dr. F. Batmanghelidj, M.D. writes in his book Your Body’s Many Cries for Water,
Many persons confuse their thirst with hunger. Thinking they have consumed enough ‘water’ from their soda, they assume they are hungry and begin to eat more than their body needs for food. In due time, dehydration will cause a gradual gain in weight from overeating as a direct result of confusion of thirst and hunger sensations.”
So during your next holiday gathering, drink a glass of water before you’re tempted to have another piece of pie—see if your hunger goes away!
Eat The Right Kind Of Carbs
A huge tip for holiday parties is eating the right kind of carbs. There are two types of carbohydrates:
Complex carbs: these are “the Good Guys.” These carbs are made in nature, and are disaccharides and polysaccharides (natural sugars).
Complex carbs are found in vegetables, greens and fruits.
Simple carbs: these are “the Bad Guys”—most are manmade, and are monosaccharides (simple sugars and artificial sweeteners).
Simple carbs are found in potatoes, corn, refined grains and grain products, refined pasta, processed foods, baked goods, refined sugar and artificial sweeteners.
Stay Natural
Natural foods include whole grains, raw foods, complex carbs, unprocessed sugars, and healthy fats.
When you eat mostly natural foods during the holidays, your pants won’t feel tight, you can taste everything without needing a nap by 3 PM, and you’ll wake up the next morning feeling fine.
Most natural foods have no artificial sugars, no hydrogenated fats or oils, and no processed grains or unnatural preservatives.
Healthier processed food products will be made with naturally milled organic sugar, organic honey, organic molasses, organic oat flour, barley flour, and organic ground nuts. The only “preservative” is typically vitamin E, which is usually added for freshness.
And when you eat mostly real, natural food, you’ll feel fuller after you eat.
You’ll be amazed when you eat more fresh and natural, you won’t need to sprinkle sugar or an artificial sweetener on your food because it already tastes sweet. This proves that processed foods have little taste, so they require artificial chemicals and sweeteners to restore their original flavor.
So, for all holiday-goers out there, the next get-together you go to, choose the freshest raw foods on the buffet instead of the tempting foods full of fake chemical fillers and sugars.
You’ll notice an improvement in how you feel the next day, and you’ll discover how to better enjoy the holidays.
________________
If you want to learn more about healthy eating, contact me at janethull.com. Remember that you are never alone when you are looking for good health!
_____________
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only, and is educational in nature. The FDA may not have evaluated some of the statements. This article is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please discuss with your own, qualified health care provider before adding supplements or making any changes to your dietary program.
Before taking vitamins, consult your doctor; pre-existing medical conditions or medications you are taking can affect how your body responds to multivitamins.
You have our permission to reprint this article if you attribute us with a live back-link to this article and the youtube links. https://janethull.com/
