Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hey everyone, I'm Courtney. I'm your dietitian with E2M and today's video, an article that we'll be posting is about holiday eating and how to stay on track during the holidays.
[00:00:15] A lot of us do see weight gain during the holiday time. Unfortunately, research has shown that we tend to gain about 1 to 5 pounds during the months of November through January.
[00:00:26] And unfortunately, we may not lose that weight. And then we tend to gain more weight during the following holidays.
[00:00:35] So those one to five pounds can really easily turn into 10 pounds, 20 pounds, 30 pounds without us being aware.
[00:00:44] Some things that are going to be affecting us, you know, increasing our risk of weight gain would be having larger portions or the desire to eat more at the meals or at the holiday parties, the social pressure to indulge in things.
[00:01:03] We may also be more inclined to drink alcohol and sugary drinks. These can also increase during our holiday parties, which can cause weight gain.
[00:01:14] We may have less structure around our meal times and our exercise time.
[00:01:20] So this means with all of the busy, crazy things that are happening during this holiday time, kid events, holiday parties, potentially more work, all of these things can take away time from exercise, can take away time from eating. So we may not cook as much or we may skip a meal, or we may have to get takeout or eat out at a fast food restaurant.
[00:01:43] And we may also cut out exercise because we're too busy. So all of these things are going to affect our weight gain.
[00:01:51] Also emotional eating or stress eating. With emotional eating and stress eating, this can also play into our body's cravings.
[00:02:01] If we are feeling stressed, we tend to crave a sweet or a salty or a high fat item. These are very rich, palatable foods.
[00:02:11] And these types of foods, when we eat them, can increase our dopamine in our body. And dopamine helps to calm us. Dopamine helps to make us happy and feel good and then also increase our craving for these foods. So stress eating can lead to craving more stress eating foods.
[00:02:31] And then also when we eat these higher calorie foods consistently, our body tends to store the fat. It doesn't really burn it off. And when it's stored fat, it tends to be stored as visceral fat, which is really unhealthy for us.
[00:02:46] It increases our risk of obesity, it increases our risk for diabetes, stroke or heart disease.
[00:02:54] So definitely making sure we're keeping an eye on these things. We're being aware of the factors or aware of what surround us that could be increasing our risk to gain weight.
[00:03:07] Now, when it comes to tricks to staying on track. My favorite one really is tracking your weight, tracking your food, tracking your physical activity. This is not something for everybody. For some people, the tracking can be difficult. It can be monotonous, it can lead to some disordered eating behaviors. So again, it's not for everybody. But when we track our food, when we track our weight, when we track our physical exercise or physical activity, it keeps us accountable. And that's what's the most important thing here.
[00:03:43] We can see a trend in our weight, we can see a trend or a change in our food intake, we can see a change in our physical activity. And all of these things can relate together. And it's visually there in front of you. You can't really lie about it.
[00:04:00] We want to keep moving. So whatever you do, don't stop the exercise.
[00:04:05] We've got to figure out a way to get it in that's, you know, going to be helpful to your new busy schedule during the holidays. So maybe we need to wake up 30 minutes earlier to exercise, or maybe we need to cut our lunch period 15 minutes shorter so we can go for a walk. Or instead of sitting in the bleachers and watching your child participate in their sport, maybe we go for a walk around the field or a walk within the complex while they're doing their sport. And you can still continue to watch them.
[00:04:39] So there are lots of ways to get that activity in. We just have to be a little more creative about it. During the holidays, we also don't want to skip meals. Skipping meals, it's a really, really common thing to do during the holidays because the thought process is that I'm going to eat more calories. So. So I'm going to keep the calories low. I'm not going to eat at this meal.
[00:05:02] But this causes us to overindulge. And also with skipping meals, our body could reduce the metabolism.
[00:05:11] So when we skip a meal, our body starts to think, especially if it's consistently meal skipping, our body feels like it doesn't need all of the energy to use to burn. So then our metabolism slows down. So skipping meals is never a good thing.
[00:05:29] When we are preparing our meals, make sure we're prioritizing the protein and the vegetable. I am here for all the sides when it comes to the holidays, that we want to make sure we have the protein, the turkey, the ham, the beef, whatever protein it is, we want to make sure we have our vegetables and then the sides can be added to it.
[00:05:53] And along those same lines, we want to make sure. We're planning for the indulgent item. So if you're the one who really, really loves the sweet potato casserole and that's where you want to put your indulgent calories, go for it. But then maybe let's stay away from the green bean casserole and the Mac and cheese. Okay. Or if you're the one that really has to have the cheesecake, whatever flavor, then maybe we avoid again, the mashed potatoes or the corn casserole or, you know, something that we know is going to be a higher calorie item that's not necessari really going to be the healthiest thing for us to eat.
[00:06:33] Having a buffet style eating or a buffet style serving instead of putting food on the table can be really helpful. When we have food on the table and we're sitting in front of it, we tend to mindlessly eat and grab extra of the item.
[00:06:50] So trying to avoid that type of meal service if it's something that we can't avoid. Maybe see if you can switch seats with somebody. So if somebody has green beans sitting in front of them, you may be less likely to mindlessly eat on green beans if you're sitting in front of it as opposed to the person sitting in front of the rolls.
[00:07:12] So try, try swapping seats if we need to. Also, socializing away from the food can be helpful to minimize mindless eating.
[00:07:21] So rather than sitting at the appetizer table. Excuse me, standing at the appetizer table, socializing, talking to, you know, aunts and uncles and friends, maybe we socialize on the other side of room. Have yourself a small appetizer plate fixed so you don't feel like you have to continually eat something off the table. You're standing by, we're standing away from the table.
[00:07:44] I love this one. We want to make movement a priority and maybe a tradition for the family. So what if we signed everybody up for a holiday 5K? Or what if, you know, the night after Thanksgiving, we go for a walk through the lights at the light park that you may have in town or take the family volunteering so that, you know, we're doing service and we're also cutting calories in that way because we're not socializing all in the food.
[00:08:16] My husband's family, they always had a, they called it cousin bowl. So all of the cousins would play football after they've eaten, Believe it or not, they would play for hours. So something like that. Creating family traditions that involve movement can be really helpful.
[00:08:34] We want to also maybe prepare A healthy dish. If you're not having it at your house, take a dish that's going to be healthy, that you know tastes good, that you can share with everybody around you.
[00:08:47] We also want to set intentions for your meal. Now this is a biggie. If you choose to celebrate and to enjoy, that's totally fine. It's not wrong. It is very appropriate and, and it's a healthy way for you to still indulge. But knowing I'm going to get back on track, so setting the intention for that meal, knowing this is my meal, this is my splurge, this is what I want to do, that's totally cool.
[00:09:19] Stay active while travel. This is a hard one for a lot of people.
[00:09:25] So if you're traveling, carry resistance bands in your exercise or in your luggage, carry your tennis shoes, carry or workout gear.
[00:09:35] I don't expect anybody to carry weights with them. That's going to be a little hard. But the resistance bands can be really nice to stuff in the bag. You can also make sure your Airbnb or your hotel potentially have a workout space.
[00:09:50] And that's how we can stay active and again, prioritize the physical activity, whether it be waking up 30 minutes beforehand or taking a quick break for 15 minutes, going for a walk kind of thing.
[00:10:02] Last but not least is try not to spiral if you slip up. We are human. We are all prone to slipping up. We're not perfect when it comes to the health journey, it is about progress and not perfection.
[00:10:18] So if you do overindulge and that was not your intention, don't beat yourself up about it. You know, accept it, figure out kind of what happened, how did I fall off?
[00:10:31] Use that opportunity to learn about yourself and to grow, but then move forward. Because there's always the next meal that we can jump back on. We don't have to restart at the end of the holidays. We would just start at the next meal.
[00:10:44] So with all that being said, we want to make sure that we are staying balanced, staying mindful, and also being compassionate to ourselves during the holidays. It's never wrong to say this is my time and I'm going to enjoy, but it's also okay to enjoy and still keep exercising. Keep following your healthy diet choices.
[00:11:09] It's all about balance.
[00:11:11] So I hope everybody has a wonderful day. Hope everybody has wonderful holidays.
[00:11:16] This video is also going to be helpful for everybody else in the upcoming holidays for the upcoming year too.
[00:11:24] So please refer back to it and then check out the article if you want to see it all in writing. Thanks everyone have a great day.
[00:11:32] Bye.
