So it’s almost halfway through the month already. The month that brings a seemingly endless abundance of decadent treats to celebrate the festive season. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the goodies so go ahead and tickle your taste buds! No need to feel guilty, this is a special time of year and resisting all the tasty delectables will only make you feel cranky and resentful. This is not the time to be dieting. Besides, the word “diet” implicates short-term food restrictions for what amounts to nothing but short-term results.
To achieve long-term health, you need to adopt a lifetime dietary habit that includes healthy, nutritious foods for the majority of your meals. You can still do this during the most indulgent month of the year. Here’s how: not every single meal in December involves a fancy display of sweets and treats. You still have breakfast, lunch & supper everyday. Make those meals healthy ones. And to help you balance the carbohydrate scale a little better, focus on consuming healthy carbs during your regular eat-at-home meals.
Since there will be an over-consumption of “simple” carbs (these include all the candies, chocolates, cakes, cookies etc), make your at-home meals using “complex” carbs from whole grain foods such as beans, nuts & seeds, vegetables etc. The simple carbs are quickly broken down and stored as fat and have no nutritional value. The complex carbs, on the other hand, contain starches & fibre. Soluble fibre slows the absorption of the starches & sugars while Insoluble fibre helps move food through the digestive system while promoting bowel regularity.
And one more thing: try to stay active during the season. Carbs are the first thing the body uses for fuel. You don’t keep putting gas in your vehicle while it’s sitting in the driveway going nowhere, right? You need to drive around and use up that gas before it needs a refill. Same with your body. Constantly feeding it “simple sugars” without any activity to use up the carbs means they get converted to fat for storage!
So, go for a walk in the snow, go skiing, make a snowman! Keep moving that body and have a Merry Christmas!
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