A holiday meal like Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner can easily top 2500 calories - that’s probably more than you need in a whole day. You might be able to get away with eating one meal like that over the holidays, but once you add more dinners and holiday parties, your diet can get out of control pretty quickly. It is no wonder many people start to gain weight this time of year.
Why not be proactive this year? Rather than falling into the same old holiday diet traps, take some control. Tanya Zuckerbrot, MS, RD, the author of The F-Factor Diet has some tips to keep your Thanksgiving and any holiday meal under control.
Holiday meals don’t have to pack such a high calorie punch. Simple makeover tips can lighten a meal and keep the taste just as good. Holiday Meal Makeover with Tanya’s
Tips…
Baked Turkey
• Choose a plain bird over a self-basting bird to lower the sodium content
• To ensure a moist bird, bake un-stuffed, leave the skin on while roasting and remove from the oven when internal temperature reaches 170 degrees in the breast
Gravy
• Use a gravy cup or refrigerate the pan juices (to harden the fat) and skim the fat off before making gravy
• Save around 656 grams of fat per cup!
Candied Yams
• Leave out the margarine and marshmallows
• Sweeten with fruit juice, such as apple and flavor with cinnamon
Green Bean Casserole
• Cook fresh green beans with chunks of potatoes instead of cream soup
• Top with almonds instead of fried onion rings
Mashed Potatoes
• Use skim milk, roasted garlic, and a little parmesan cheese instead of whole milk and butter
Bread
• Serve smaller pieces or omit it altogether
Pay Attention to Your Plate
• Imagine your plate divided into thirds
• Use the 1st third to fan out white meat turkey, no skin
• Use the 2nd third for salad and low-fat vegetables.
• Finally, the last third is for all the starches (sweet potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce)
Yes! I have got valuable tips for holiday and even party meal. But your minute detail criteria looks little tough to be adopted in real life. But I remembered one thing to gain something we have to do something. Let me look healthy.
Great tips. I have used orange juice with sweet potatoes and they just don’t taste right. I am going to try apple cider or juice with them and see how that turns out.
Great website, I really like what you have done. Keep up the great work.
Mmm…orange juice with sweet potatoes, that actually sounds good!
I wish I had found this post earlier. I saved this tips for next Christmas anyway.
Tanya Zuckerbrot, MS, RD, the author of The F-Factor Diet has some tips to keep your Thanksgiving and any holiday meal under control.
Find things that you like, and stock up on them. Try to eat with friends and family, eating alone can be very depressing, so if you eat with people you won’t even realize you have eaten. Also eat while watching tv or something, again you eat a lot more than you normally would.
The biggest tip I would say is, to always watch your portions and how much you in-take. No matter what kind of calories meal you are eating, if you eat too much, even if its healthy, it wont be good
I think it’s all about selfcontrol. If a person can’t make themselves eat less during holidays how are they supposed to keep ut their diet? Sure it’s always a good idea to make food like that less calorie-dense but some people will just eat more of the lighter stuff (”well it doesn’t have many calories so I don’t have to limit myself!”) and after all they’ll consume the same ammount of calories.