1. Holiday dinners, social gatherings – now what? In preparation for the holiday season, boost your energy and metabolism by reducing stress, adding fiber-rich foods to your plate, staying hydrated and keeping up with your body movement! Do not restrict, enjoy the holiday meals & stay hydrated.
Try adding a piece of pineapple or strawberry to your water!
2. Stay Hydrated – As water helps combat fatigue and curve cravings, keep the water flowing and reach for a water when you’d usually reach for a coffee or any caffeinated drink. We want our bodies to be in a parasympathetic state to reduce stress and inflammation, caffeinated beverages contribute to the exact opposite and activates our bodies alertness. Although stimulating alertness may sound great, constant activation imposes stress and can lead to inflammation. Best practices: Drink filtered water and choose glass bottles when accessible. Avoid drinking water within 30 minutes of your eating window.
Add vegetables to your plate to fiber up!
3. Heal stress with Nutrition – Along with body movement and hydration – We want to strengthen our immunity with nutrient dense foods that include Zinc, Vitamin C, Magnesium, Calcium and B vitamins. Stress can deplete these essential nutrients and before you know it, you start craving certain foods such as chocolate, which is a sign that your body may be lacking Magnesium! Oxidative stress depletes your zinc levels, weakening proper liver function, leading to toxin accumulation and more. Fortify your plate with organic vegetables, reduce the amount of oil you consume, reach for fruits such as papaya and pineapple, or citrus fruits for Vitamin C and avocados, bananas and almonds are a great source for Magnesium!
Try for seven days straight to eat only fresh fruit for breakfast!
4. Break fast – Break up the word breakfast to break fast, it is how you are breaking fast that is important to aid digestive health. What is the first thing you reach for in the morning? Is it a tall glass of water or is it coffee? How about your first meal? Is it a hydrating piece of fruit or a breakfast sandwich? Try for the next 7 days, breaking fast with a tall glass of water, followed by fresh cucumber juice and or a fresh piece of fruit, you will see how energized you feel and how your cravings will begin to fade.. An outstanding seasonal fruit; Pomegranate. From ancient times they have been considered the fruit of abundance and fertility – anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial. Studies have demonstrated that the extracts can serve to manage localized tumors, stop the growth of cancer cells.
Do not skip meals!
5. Eat consistently and mindfully – tap into your intuitive self and begin to ask yourself, “is this habitual or is this natural?”, as food has become so readily accessible today, we tend to over eat during meal time and constantly reach for a snack throughout the day. Don’t skip meals and wait 4 hours after each meal before eating again, so that your digestive system has time to break down the foods and properly absorb the nutrients. Avoid snacking and reach out to us if you are considering implementing an intermittent fasting protocol to help aid in weight loss while enjoying your favorite holiday meals!
6. Time to Fiber UP! – Do you know how much fiber you are consuming daily? Fiber in your diet will keep you fuller for longer and will clean up house; increasing intestinal motility while you watch the belly fat dissipate. I love personalizing plans for clients because the magic of minor adjustments can lead to major results. A 5 year case study was done to measure lifestyle factors and abdominal fat; the study demonstrated that for every additional 10g of soluble fiber in the individuals diet, a 3.2% decrease of Visceral (belly fat) took place. So, what does 10g of fiber look like? Apples, bananas, oranges, and strawberries have about 3-4.5g of fiber a serving and raspberries have up to 8g in a single cup!
Are you having 2-3 bowel movements a day? During my first session with new clients I always ask this question and to no surprise majority of clients share that they only have 1 bowel movement if* they are lucky. Ideally, we want to be having 2-3 bowel movements daily and optimal health is having one about 30 minutes after a meal.
Eat something healthy before you head out the door!
7. Before you go – You are more likely to be mindful of your portions and enjoy yourself in a social scene if you are satiated. Rather than leaving the house hungry, enjoy a healthy snack at home before you go. This way your hungry hormone, ghrelin, will stay tamed and your focus will be spent on the people you are with rather than the time that food will be served. Bananas are a perfect example, mood boosting and enough fiber to help you feel satiated. Bananas contain vitamin b6, b3 & amino acid L-tryptophan which all are necessary components for the body to produce serotonin, which is your happy neurotransmitter and precursor to melatonin production! So you will not only feel better but also sleep better!
8. Keep doing you – We eat to live and not the other way around. Meaning the line between eating to feel energized and eating to indulge ourselves is often blurred. It is a simple phrase I remember my grandmother always telling us at the dinner table and sometimes all we need is the simple reminder that we eat to live and not live to eat. So enjoy yourself and your holiday meals and if you are ever in doubt about a decision pertaining to nutrition, and or a craving – just remember to ask yourself “is this habitual, or is this natural?”
~Samantha Bifulco~
Ref. Links
https://sharonpalmer.com/dietitians-top-nutrition-tips-for-surviving-the-holidays/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7074153/
