Start Making Choices: How to Eat Healthy During the Holidays

By Karen Asp

Don't fall prey to holiday weight gain. Fend off the food frenzy with these easy, good-for-you eating strategies.

Your Strategy: You bring a healthy dish to a gathering to ensure there's something you can indulge in.

More Tricks to Try:

Eat the best-for-you offerings first. For example, hot soup as a first course—especially when it's broth-based—can help you avoid eating too much during the main course.
Stand more than an arm's length away from munchies, like a bowl of nuts or chips, so you're not tempted.

Your Strategy: To cut down on the lure of the food court, you never go to the mall on an empty stomach.

More Tricks to Try:

Plan your shopping route so you don't pass the Cinnabon stand a dozen times. Both sights and smells can coax you to eat.
Choose a restaurant over the food court whenever you can, and request a table away from loud sounds and distractions, which can cause you to eat more.

Your Strategy: Before a party, you have a healthy snack to curb your appetite.

More Tricks to Try:

Limit the number of high-calorie foods on your party plate. Research has shown that when faced with a variety of foods, people eat more—regardless of their true hunger level. Cutting down on your personal smorgasbord can decrease what you end up eating by 20 to 40 percent.
Choose foods wisely, filling your plate with low-calorie items, such as leafy green salads and lean proteins, and taking smaller portions of the richer ones.

Your Strategy: You stash healthy foods in your desk at work so you're not as tempted by the treats piling up at the office.

More Tricks to Try:

Try to keep communal office goodies out of view, either in an area that isn't as highly trafficked as the kitchen or in covered dishes.
Before you splurge, do something healthy, like eating a piece of fruit or walking around the office for five minutes.

Your Strategy: You eyeball sensible portions so you don't end up eating too much.

More Tricks to Try:

Use smaller plates and serving utensils. Try a salad or dessert plate for the main course and a teaspoon to serve yourself. What looks like a normal portion on a 12-inch plate can, in fact, be sinfully huge. In one study conducted at Cornell University, even nutrition experts served themselves 31 percent more ice cream when using oversize bowls compared with smaller bowls. The size of the serving utensil mattered, too: Subjects served themselves 57 percent more when they used a three-ounce scoop versus a smaller scoop.
Pour drinks into tall, skinny glasses, not the fat, wide kind. Other studies at Cornell have shown that people are more likely to pour 30 percent more liquid into squatter vessels.

Your Strategy: You plan to use sheer willpower during large family dinners.

More Tricks to Try:

Eat with a small group when you can. One study found that dining with six or more people can cause you to eat 76 percent more, most likely because the meal can last so long.
Wait for all the food to be on the table before making your selections. People who make their choices all at once eat about 14 percent less than do those who keep refilling when each plate is passed.

Your Strategy: You stave off feelings of deprivation by allowing yourself just one "cheat" day a week.

More Tricks to Try:

Plan in advance to eat a little more and be a little more flexible at this time of year, when you face daily temptations. For instance, rather than inhaling four sugar cookies on your cheat day, allow yourself one as a dessert when the mood strikes. Then make one little switch during the day to account for those calories—maybe skipping that morning latte.
Instead of wasting calories on foods that you can have at any time of the year, pick items that are truly unique to the season, like your grandmother's candied yams.