Join Caitlin as she shares her tips on how to tackle eating at a holiday party according to the Zen & M’s mantra of moderation rather than deprivation.

Winter is coming.

But, you know that because Thanksgiving is over, and the Chrishanukkah season is following closely at its heels. Staying fit during this holiday season will be a test of all of our constitutions. We all managed to get through the first quarter with a healthy lifestyle; this is just another challenge, and we’re going to conquer it!

A healthy lifestyle is equal parts eating, working out and fun, so my holiday season blog will be broken into two parts to properly equip you with the tools you’ll need to make it. This blog post will focus mainly on holiday parties and food. The other post will focus on the month of December and working out, but you can expect some overlap and a sprinkling of fun in both!

So without further ado, allow me to present you with your holiday party game plan. It’s one you can recycle for any holiday event throughout the season.

Day of the holiday party:

When you wake up: Eat breakfast! You know it’s my favorite meal, and you know why. This is not the day to skip meals. Stick to your regular meal and snack schedule. It will keep you full and allow you to make healthy choices later in the day. Skipping meals leads to gorging, which will slow your metabolism and actually cause you to gain weight.

When you arrive at dinner: Scan your options. To your left, you see a plate stacked high with pigs in a blanket. To your right, the chips and salsa catch your eye. Instead of springing for either of these options right away, take one last look. Ah, there it is. The veggie plate relegated to the dark corner of the room. Make that your first stop. After you’ve had your fill of veggies and curbed your hunger, pick one or two bites of your favorite appetizers.

Dinner: Here it is. The challenge we’ve been waiting all night for. Start with a salad and veggies, but after that, don’t let the obstacle ahead scare you. Often, the calories in a meal come from side dishes and second helpings. I don’t want to preach to you to skip any of your favorite foods because that would be contradictory to everything we have learned in Zen & M’s! Enjoy what you like (for me, that’s my father’s pretzel bread), but do what my mother tells me to — use the “three nibble rule.” If you want something extra as part of your meal, eat three nibbles of it. Three nibbles of something isn’t going to add an inch to your waistline. When it comes to the main parts of your meal, watch the portion sizes.

There are techniques to eating dinner that will aid you as well. First, eat slow, and put your fork down in between bites. This will give your stomach time to tell your brain when it’s full. And make sure you’re eating until you’re satisfied, not until you’re full. Make sure to drink plenty of H₂O to prevent dehydration and combat the high sodium foods that haunt holiday dinner tables. I’ll let you in on a little secret too: Water has no calories!

Before I leave you, I want to give you some neutral holiday eating advice. Remember that the actual holidays aren’t that many days into the holiday season. Get into the mindset that splurges are for those days, not for every day. Ask yourself before splurging if the food is worth the extra work later. For example, if you’re choosing whether or not to eat my grandmother’s chocolate cake or my father’s pretzel bread, it’s probably worth the splurge and extra reps in the gym. On the other hand, you’re choosing whether or not to eat generic store-bought cookies at a party, maybe you should skip them.

Above all, remember to have fun. This is the most wonderful time of the year, so you best darn enjoy yourself! Plus, if you’re focused on family and friends, you won’t be stressing about the food around you. When the going gets tough, just remember the Zen & M’s mantra: moderation not deprivation.

Stay tuned for next week’s edition on how to work out to beat the holidays!