Keep Your Spirits Up and Your Weight Down for the Holidays!
5 Easy, Enjoyable Tips for a Happy, Healthy Season
1. Go a little nutty!
Eat nuts daily and help out your heart, your blood sugar, your skin, your mood and your brain. Nuts are high in protein, good fats and fiber.
Go for the plain nuts (rather than salted, flavored or sugared) and enjoy them raw or lightly toasted to bring out the flavor.
Look for the nuts at parties, desserts and buffet bars. Eat a handful slowly before you eat other things. The protein will help ease your hunger; the good oils will help you metabolize sugars better.
Take them with you in baggies when you travel or go shopping so you have an easy, healthy snack when there aren’t many other good options.
Eat some before bedtime to help keep your blood sugar stable through the night and to avoid the adrenaline surge that may awaken you in the night.
2. Practice S.A.N.E. eating.
Sit down when you eat. You will be more likely to eat less, enjoy it more and digest better.
Adjust your pace of eating. Slooooow dooown while you eat. Studies show that people who eat slowly can more easily reach and maintain their ideal weights.
Notice, really notice with all your senses, what you are eating. Notice how you feel when you eat, notice when you are full. Notice which foods make you feel better and which foods make you feel worse
Enjoy lots of fresh, natural leafy green and colorful vegetables. These will vitalize your body and help your mind stay alert and positive. Crunchy foods help raise levels of serotonin: a feel-good hormone.
3. Get outside and get moving!
Fresh air and exercise have been proven over and over to have positive benefits on physical and psychological health. Studies show that they are even more effective together!
Get outside every day and move, even if it you just breathe and stretch or walk around the block.
Being outdoors and being active will lift your mood whether you are clinically depressed, just a little bluesy or somewhere in between.
Fresh air and exercise will boost your metabolism, lower your stress levels and help you sleep.
Getting outside early in the day will help reset your melatonin levels so you can fall asleep more easily at night.
4. Take time for yourself amid the hustle and busyness of the season.
Schedule time to do things you love.
Practice saying no to things you don’t want to do so you can really mean yes when you do say it.
Doing what you enjoy is one of your very best medicines. Self-prescribe it daily: “Rx for Self : Enjoy ________ for 10 minutes today!”
5. Get more rest and relaxation
Go to bed earlier in these winter months. More sleep will help you avoid winter depression and help keep your weight down and your blood sugar balanced.
Enjoy mini- hibernations. The natural rhythm of the season calls us to slow down even when the holiday pace and expectations speed up.
Take a few minutes every day to just be quiet, to relax in a way that you enjoy and to listen to your still, small voice within.
