Diet Center: Help For The Holidays

Happy November! November brings in the start of our winter holidays with Thanksgiving just around the corner. If your holidays always involve food, then you are like most of us. Visions of roast turkey and dressing, casseroles, and lots of planning, plus hard work are playing in our minds.

As the holidays arrive, remember my motto, “Preparation prevents desperation.” Stay stocked up on healthy choices, especially before and during the holidays. An often overlooked healthy fruit choice is grapefruit. Half of a grapefruit is considered a fruit serving. The pink and red varieties have a little more vitamin C and beta-carotene than the white varieties. All varieties of grapefruit help the body to better utilize iron when eaten with other iron-rich foods. We don’t usually think of winter as a time for fresh fruit, but it is an important part of our nutrition. During the holidays, offer fresh fruit as an alternative to sugary starch desserts. Also, continue to drink water frequently so that you are not feeling thirsty and tempted to consume punch or other sugary beverages. Even your brain needs water to function at its peak capacity! When you make a less than healthy choice, the most important thing to do is to avoid allowing one instance of eating unhealthy become a week or month of unhealthy choices! It’s far better to stay focused and get right back to eating healthy rather than giving up and just eating poorly for weeks! Keep a journal of the food eaten each day to help stay on track to consume the required foods, and at the same time, be a reminder of what has already been consumed each day. Awareness is key to staying on track with any weight reduction program.

If you are a stress/emotional eater, holidays can be huge diet pitfalls. Plan your meals in advance with fresh vegetables and make substitutions in recipes when possible to lower the amount of fat and sugar. Sugar can be somewhat of a “drug” – the more you consume of it, the more you want! To prevent overindulging, eat plenty of lean protein and vegetables, minus sauces and gravies. If you must have something sweet, choose dark chocolate in moderation, as it has been identified as a food that has many health benefits. Make extra efforts to exercise during the holiday season to reduce stress effects and keep your metabolism going at a good rate.

We have many current and former Diet Center clients who live by these tips, and they have lost fat pounds and inches. Most important, they have maintained their weight/fat loss for years, not just a few months. Do you know anyone that has lost weight and, once the reducing program is over, they have gained back what they lost plus more? This rebounding effect does not happen with Diet Center’s programs. So you are probably thinking, “Why are Diet Center’s programs different?” We tailor each program to meet the nutritional needs of each person. Our programs are designed to burn fat and preserve lean muscle tissue. After achieving the goals for weight and body fat percentage, our programs are designed to enable each person to sustain these goals over a lifetime. This is where other commercial weight loss programs fall short, and this includes “fad” diets. Reality means you cannot go back to your previous unhealthy habits, but it doesn’t prevent you from being able to enjoy life!

Cameras are accused of “adding” at least 10 pounds to our images. If we are already 20 pounds over our desired weight, then our pictures will look like we are 30 pounds overweight, which equates to 3 dress sizes! No wonder so many parents have lots of pictures of their children at holidays, but they are rarely in these pictures. Look back at your photo albums and see if that is true for you. In the years to come, your children will ask you why you are not in the pictures. Don’t let this year be another one with no holiday pictures of you!  Start getting ready now and you can easily be down 2 to 3 dress sizes by Christmas. Give yourself a gift of “loving yourself” and being healthy!

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