healthy eating for the holidays

5 Ways To Cut Calories Over The Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving!

The first thing that pops into my mind when I think of a holiday is family (smile)! The second, FOOD.  I am going to be very transparent here when I say that I have to mentally prepare on what I will and what I will not have over the holidays, days in advance. I have to plan ahead, thinking about adding an extra cardio interval day, or preparing myself on what I am going to skip out on at the dinner table.

Why? Because I don’t want to gain weight just because it’s the holidays and regret what I worked so hard for. The holidays should not be an excuse for you to stuff yourself. What is should be is a celebration with friends and family, and of course you should reward yourself with some great tasting food.

Here is my 5 ways I will be cutting calories this Thanksgiving:

1. Bring your own dessert.

By bringing your own dessert, you an ensure you are cutting hundreds and even thousands of calories, not to mention toxins, by baking with healthy ingredients that have nutritional value. Here are common ingredients in most desserts:

• sugar
• bleached flour
• eggs
• butter
• vegetable oil

2. Skip the bread and stuffing, or make your own.

Too many carbs at the table, sound familiar? Our body only uses carbs for energy, that’s it! Unless you are incredibly active, you don’t need many carbs throughout the day. You especially don’t need a lot of them on a day that you will not be working out and having more calories than usual.

If you want to keep them in your Holiday feast, simply make your own. Here are the main ingredients in most breads, and what you can replace them with to ensure your body is getting nutrients instead of empty calories:

• sugar/sugar substitutes 
• margarine/organic butter
• milk/water or almond milk
• eggs/egg whites or organic eggs
• vegetable oil/cut out all together
• bleached flour/spelt or sprouted whole wheat flour
  *add in flax seeds for omega 3-fatty acids

3. Have a drink!

4. Skip the cranberry sauce and gravy

Yes I know, cranberries have a lot of great qualities including preventing UTIs, but did you know the store-bought cranberry sauce has a TON of granulated sugar, or a.k.a. toxic, bleached, no-nutritional value, should be BANNED, white powder? Unless, again, you are making this sauce yourself, don’t even let the cranberry sauce touch your plate.

What about gravies? Most gravys have a heap of flour, and not the good unbleached kind. Instead, use the juice from the turkey to smother over your meat and potatoes.

If you need Fat-Touching recipes, Click here to start burning fat from what you eat, instead of what you don’t eat!

5. Have a coffee!

Organic, caffeinated coffee is actually good for you!  Benefits from enhancing detoxification to anti-oxidant may be the reason why coffee drinkers live an average of 5 years longer than non-coffee drinkers and why women are less likely to suffer from a stroke when drinking coffee compared to non-coffee drinkers. Drinking coffee helps with memory, mood and can improve insulin sensitivity. Don’t drink too much though or coffee can have a negative effect on insulin sensitivity. Recall that insulin is a storage hormone, and we want our body to be able to control insulin levels to prevent fat storage.

There you have it! Let me know how your Thanksgiving dinner was, how you conquered the dinner table, and whether you still felt completely satisfied after dinner.

Bonappetit!