For many, the holidays are a time to let lose…on everything. For multiple months. And while there’s nothing wrong the occasional break away from routine, setting ourselves up for prolonged periods of time without consistent care for our overall wellbeing can turn a refreshing vacation into a groggy nightmare. So, here are some ways you can enjoy the holidays without overdoing it.
Maintain a Healthy Diet, in the midst of sugar overload:
With the holidays comes cookies, and cake, and fudge, and … you get the idea. Processed sugar is everywhere, and even the foods that aren’t sweet, are around in greater abundance than usual. And, when you’re surrounded by friends and family who poured hours into the meals at the table, it’s not only easy to overeat, it’s expected. While this part of the season is often extremely difficult to avoid, there are ways to keep it from being a major blow to your health: it’s all about having a game plan.
Sharon Mascoe-Maxwell RDN, LD, a dietitian at Piedmont Fayette Hospital, advises us to remember the ideal plate breakdown, recommending filling half of your plate with non-starchy vegetables. Go for fresh salad and roasted, grilled or steamed veggies. Save cheese- or sauce-laden vegetable dishes for special occasions and stick to a small serving.
A quarter of your plate should be lean protein, like skinless turkey breast, chicken, eggs, fish or seafood. The other quarter of your plate can be whole grains, like quinoa, brown rice, whole-grain pasta or whole-grain bread. She recommends limiting or having small portions of gravy, sauces and salad dressings.
“You can still have your favorite foods like mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce; just have a smaller portion,” she says. “You can also manage your portions by using a smaller plate, not going back for seconds and taking smaller slices of pies and cakes.”
It’s also important to incorporate vitamin D into your diet, as the lower amounts of sunshine exposure also have a noticeable effect on our overall health.
Don’t Slack on exercising:
The combo of colder weather and earlier nights makes it all the easier for even the most disciplined to start skipping out on regular exercise. Even early risers who make time for a morning workout or run might be finding it a bit harder to climb out of their warm bed in the morning.
However, according to the current Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, it is generally recommended that adults between 18 and 64 years accomplish at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity, such as going on a faster walk, in addition to setting aside two days to engage in strength-training activities, each week.
It is hard to find time for this even outside of Winter months? Absolutely. But, there are actually ways to incorporate these exercises into your daily life, without having to find extra hours at the beginning or end of your day, and even inside, away from harsher weather. Walking, for example, is typically a really easy way to break up your day.
Everything in moderation:
It’s okay to go all-out, in moderation – at the end of the day, it’s impossible to maintain the perfect diet or exercise routine all the time, especially during the holidays, which for many of us, are the few opportunities we all ourselves any reprieve. But, it’s all important to keep in mind why all these guidelines exist in the first place: when you’re consistently working to maintain your health the majority of the time, you’ll be better off overall, and might actually find it easier for your body to recover from the moments when you do ease up on routine for the sake of indulging a bit during holiday season.
Should you completely throw all healthy habits to the curb for 3 months only to try and overdo it at the gym in January? No. That makes it harder to stick to even your normal workout routine, never mind any new fitness goals, and ends up setting you up for failure.
But there’s nothing wrong with taking time some to celebrate. After all, research shows that allowing yourself regular “treat moments” actually makes it more likely for someone to stick to a routine, versus trying to cut everything even remotely unhealthy out of your life 24/7. It’s all about avoiding the extremes.
