With the holidays fast approaching, I thought it would be fun to write a blog on how to eat healthy during the holidays. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love food, and stuffing my face-but I regret eating like im feeding three as soon as New Years rolls around.
This year, I have decided that I am going to approach the holidays a little different. I went ahead and collected some information from various websites on how to eat "healthy" during the holidays. Some of the tips are BRILLIANT and extremely simple.
1.) Don't Forget to Eat: It is extremely essential that you do not miss meals before the event you are attending--even if you KNOW there is going to be a ton of food. Commit to eating small portions throughout the day. This will help minimize overeating and making poor food choices.
2.) Take Only One Serving of Each Item: If your anything like me, I tend to load up my entire plate. I most certainly take more than one serving of each item. Then again-that's probably because I do not eat before the big event [hence why ill be paying more attention to tip number 1]. Take the one serving guys, and savor it!
3.) Use a Smaller Plate: The bigger the plate you use, the more you will want to eat. Try using a smaller plate. This will help you to minimize portion sizes. Who wants to be the one that gets up for plate #3? Talk about embarassing- Not ME! The smaller plate method will force you to limit your eating.
4.) Fill Up on Fiber: Fiber [veggies, bean dip, fruits, wheat crackers] SUPER healthy and keeps your tummy feeling full. I would recommend to add a ton of fiber on your plate so you do not find yourself getting multiple plates of food.
5.) Drink Water: You can slow down your eating by taking a sip of water avidly during your meal. Sometimes dehydration can feel like hunger so make sure that you are hydrating yourself during your event.
6.) Get Away From the Table: It is hard to control yourself if you are hanging all over the food table. Remove yourself from the food areas so that you are not constantly picking at the food [I have a BAD habit of doing this].
7.) Exercise: If most of these tips are hard for you to do. Get yourself to the GYM before the holiday party. Most gyms are open on holidays for limited hours. Check your local gym listing to see what their holiday hours are. Even if it is just for a 30 minute run, that is some extra calories lost that you don't have to feel guilty for.
Over this past weekend, my friends and I hosted an event called Friendsgiving. A few people have asked me what Friendsgiving is so I thought I would share this event in my blog today. Let me break it down to you:
-A Thanksgiving
-With your friends
-Where everyone contributes a side dish to the Thanksgiving Feast and their favorite alcohol to pair
If you want to host a Friendsgiving, here are the steps you need to take in doing so:
1.) Create a guestlist [duh]
2.) Have a sign in sheet where each person can state what they are going to bring to the event. This will help eliminate a million pies being at the event or only dinner rolls.
-----The person that is throwing the Friendsgiving at their house will be providing the Turkey. All the other fixings will be provided by other guests----
On the day of Friendsgiving, as a host-here are some tips to get the day running smoothly before the guests arrive:
1.) Cook the Turkey- Our Turkey was purchased at Walmart; it came with the gravy for the Turkey and was SUPER cheap. $11.99 for a 15lb turkey--STEAL! The turkey was anticipated to feed the 25 guests that were in attendance, but we STILL had leftovers. Something to keep in mind-turkey goes a long way sometimes!
-TIP: Use a Oven Bag for the Turkey. This will help eliminate any mess, and also cut your cooking time down by a few hours. We used an oven bag for our turkey and it was DELISH! Probably one of the best Turkeys I have ever tasted.
2.) Decorate the house- Before the event, I went to the Dollar Tree and picked up some last minute Thanksgiving decorations. It really gave the event the FALL/THANKSGIVING feel to it that we were looking for. We put down a table cloth on all the tables that would have drinks/food on it. This left us with a super easy clean up!
3.) Appetizer Set Up- Have appetizers/select drinks out for when your guests arrive. We went mainly with cheese/crackers dishes. This is something quick and easy that you can throw together. Who knows-you may even have these items laying around in your house. In addition, we hit up the local super maket and picked up some $2 wines. We were really classing it up on friendsgiving!
4.) Pop The Champagne!-You deserve a little celebration; not only are you hosting the event, but you made the turkey, and decorated the house. Give yourself a pat on the back. My favorite way to celebrate is a little Champagne.
-DISCOVERY: Bevmo has the largest bottle of Cooks Champagne for ONLY $8.99. Talk about a STEAL! I will only be purchasing my champagne at bevmo for NOW ON!
5.) Get the Fixin's Together- By this time, im sure most of your guests have arrived. Start placing the dishes on the table--cut the turkey--pour yourself some dranks--and GET TO EATIN!
This event was a HUGE success. This was the first Annual Friendsgiving; many other Friendsgiving's will follow here on out! Hope that you guys try it out for youself! xoxoxoxo
