Submitted by admin on Tue, 2006-11-14 08:00. ::
"People are often resigned about the holidays. They say, 'I'm going to gain weight anyway,' so they throw in the towel," he said. "But the average weight gain is only about 2 to 3 pounds."
"You can really enjoy the holidays without really having to sacrifice," he said. "Just by slightly re-engineering your environment, you can lose a little weight instead of gain it."
His first piece of advice? Literally watch the food go from your plate into your mouth. When you're engaged in conversation, take time to break eye contact with the person to look down at your plate. Be aware of what and how much you're eating.
"There is something called mindful eating, which is a little different and something we focus on at the hospital," she said. "The idea is to be truly present when you are eating."
It's awfully hard to pay attention to how many chocolate-dipped pretzels you have popped when you're lost in conversation at a party. You can eat at a party, just be cognizant of what you're loading up your plate with.
Some, such as Ann Bernstein of Cottonwood Heights, looks at holiday eating as being vegetarian or kosher: Sugars and such are simply off-limits.
"I just try to do my best to control, and plan ahead. If I know I'm going to a party, I just know I have to eat really healthy around it," she said.
Carol Conners of West Valley City also eats a salad or fruit before going to a feast, and keeps a baggie of cut-up veggies to snack on throughout the day. She also drinks plenty of water.
Make your great aunt Sally happy, but don't swallow: You know the great-aunt Sally type.She takes great pride in her chocolate-dipped pretzels and she wants to see you eat them, too. This is touchy, but Wansink suggests good old-fashioned deception.
"I have asked that my sister stop making me a cookie plate for the holidays. It sucks because I love them, but if I have [cookies] in my house I will eat them," she said.
"No one is going to eat four brownies at a time," Wansink said. "Even if you go back for more of the same item on your next trip, people still end up eating about 30 percent less food. And no one is going to make eight or nine trips."
Avoid overeating "low-fat" foods: Most people end up overeating low-fat foods because they assume they are healthy and don't have to worry about the calories. But Wansink's books shows that many low-fat foods have as many or more calories than regular foods.
"We tend to put a halo around low-fat food and we generally grossly underestimate how much we've eaten," he said. "With low-fat food, we end up eating 20 percent more calories than if we eat regular food. We suggest sticking with the good stuff, and eating about 40 percent of what you'd normally eat, which is enough to satisfy a person."
"Reducing a diet by 200 calories a day can translate into 20 pounds lost in a year," he said. "Most of us can very easily make some small changes that results in 20 or 30 pounds of loss in a year."
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