My Diet Plan: Diet Tips for the Holiday Season!

Diet Tips for the Holidays

Calories in a Holiday Meal - A Sample of a Traditional Holiday Meal

Here are some more tips that will help keep you from tipping the scales this holiday season:

Skip those tempting appetizers. Each luscious and sinful bite contains about 100 calories or more a pop! It's not worth it. Instead, focus on enjoying an entire slice of pie with your holiday meal.

Opt for unsweetened beverages. Sweeten with no calorie packets. A lemon or lime will add beauty to your beverage without spiking up the calories.

Speaking of spiking - trot away from the holiday spirits and save a ton of calories (and hiccups to boot!).

Allow the no calorie butter sprays to become your very comfortable crutch! If you opt for real butter/margarine, try to use sparingly - about one half the amount you usually use.

Cranberry sauce is very high in calories. It's very deceiving because it's made from fruit (the cranberry). In fact, the innocent looking cranberry was probably the culprit in the Garden of Eden rather than the good apple.

Pecan pie. "Just say NO." It's pure unadulterated sugar! White sugar, brown sugar, and syrup AND nuts. So, steer clear if you are watching your waistline.

Leave the cheese balls and the nut dish alone. Let your skinny Aunt Freda devour at will. As for the nuts, they contain about 400 calories per cup and are extremely high in fat.

Don't feel obligated to eat anything that you don't want to. Many times, people innocently concoct a holiday goody that's loaded with so much sugar that it would give an army of bats rotten teeth. If you find yourself locked in a situation where you just can't say no, then take the treat and discretely find a method of disposal. (Don't give kitty or puppy anything containing chocolate.) (Don't flush large objects down the toilet.)

Eat very slowly and savor each and every bite. It takes about 20 minutes before your stomach registers what your mouth put inside.

Dinner - try to eat very light OR skip entirely.

Although 1,240 calories is nothing to brag about, it's a lot better than 4,575, isn't it? You can cut the calorie/fat content further still by omitting items from your holiday meal. For instance, settle for just one dessert or omit either the mashed potato or the sweet potato. Forego the cranberry sauce, or have a small Tablespoon instead.