Rosalee Brown
MANY PERSONS Look forward to this time of year as it is associated with lots of friends, family reunions, office parties and church functions. All these events have special foods included in the celebration; there is, for instance, a variety of meats, potato and pasta salads, macaroni and cheese, candied sweet potatoes, special salad dressings and mouth-watering Christmas cakes and puddings. This is usually topped off with sorrel and various punches. If you are trying to control your food intake, this can be a challenging time of year.
Here are some survival tips:
1. Keep as close as possible to your normal eating schedules. If you miss meals because of deadlines, shopping and all the things you are trying to accomplish, then you will snack and/or eat unplanned food items and derail your plans for controlled eating.
2. Have breakfast as scheduled. If there's no time to cook, choose low-calorie, ready-to-eat cereals with low-fat milk or soy. Have fruits on hand and low-fat peanut butter - one tablespoon with two slices of bread can make a quick sandwich. Prepare some quick-cooking porridge or have some leftovers.
3. Freeze a few bottles of water and take them along with you. Put two apples in your handbag, a small pack of nuts, some crackers and some carrot sticks. Take along a small pack of wipes or hand sanitisers and you are good to go whenever hunger calls.
4. If you have to go to a party or special function, especially if it is a buffet, plan ahead how you will eat. Be aware of what you eat and don't be like the man in the advertisement who, wide-eyed, said 'gimme everything'. You have to accept that you can't have everything. Plan how much variety you will have from each food group - more variety can mean more calories, especially if the portions are not very small. You eat rice and peas all the time, so instead of that, have two small portions of an unpopular starch and two small portions of proteins, and so on. Have very large servings of vegetables without the salad dressing. You won't miss the dressing with all that variety of food on your plate.
5. Have water as your main drink and a small portion of sorrel, if you must. Another strategy is, if you have several functions for the week, spread the food variety out among the various eating occasions, so you will have a taste of all the special foods over a period of time and not at one meal.
6. If you are unable to maintain the same exercise schedule, break your workout into
10-minute or less snippets. If you climb steps, run them up and skip one rung at a time. Park and walk, wear a pedometer and see if your busy moving around is equalling 10,000 or more steps per day. The recommended number of steps is 6,000 for health and 10,000 for weight loss. For weight loss, an uninterrupted walk each day of 4,000 to 6,000 steps is recommended.
7. Because you may be eating some high-calorie foods and you may be exercising less, there is the possibility that you may gain weight, especially if you started your partying from early December or in November. It may be helpful to weigh yourself more often at the same time each day, to catch yourself before you get out of hand
8. Finally, try to get adequate sleep; lack of sleep can lead to increase eating.
Rosalee Brown is a registered dietitian/nutritionist who operates Integrated Nutrition and Health Services; email: yourhealth@gleanerjm.com.
