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Your 4 Best Bets To Beat The Holiday Bulge

By Nicole Stevenson

[Happy Holidays]

Just how much does the average person gain over the holidays? Nicole Stevenson gives you the tools to protect your waistline.

The holiday season is a great time for getting together. We make time to see family and friends that we can’t usually fit in to our busy schedules. But the get-togethers are typically set around food and drink. Meeting for lattes or fancy shmancy cocktails, chatting over cakes and cookies, and attending lavish multi-course dinner parties can wreak havoc on your waistline. But don’t worry, you can still enjoy the festivities of the season without succumbing to the pressures (or consequences) of holiday fare.

Don't Drink Your Calories

It’s that time of year again, and as cocktail parties abound, make sure you go in educated. ‘Tis the season for celebrating, and every good celebration comes complete with a glass of wine or three. But cocktails contain tons of extra calories and sugar. A cup of hot buttered rum will give you 292 calories, 5 oz. of red wine provides 125 calories, traditional Christmas favourite eggnog comes in at a whopping 400 calories for a cup and Irish crème liqueur tops the charts with an amazing 407 calories for only 4 oz. When your get-togethers revolve around what’s in your cup, make smart choices. Weight Watchers suggests drinking a glass of water for each alcoholic drink you have. This way, idle drinkers are less apt to consume mass quantities of sugary, caloric cocktails. It’s not just alcohol that adds to your holiday poundage. Everyone loves hot chocolate at Christmas, but when made with whole milk, are the 190 calories really worth it? Try a light, dry mix with hot water or skim milk instead.

Back Out Of Baking

To many of us traditionalists, holidays equal baking. Shortbread, sugar cookies and brownies, oh my! Some of our fondest memories involve standing flour-covered in the kitchen, noses parallel to the counter, as we helped Mom roll sticky balls of dough into star-shaped cookies. There is beauty in tradition, but new traditions can be made. Instead of baking a tray of goodies after you decorate the house, sit down together to write Christmas cards or build a family snowman in the first snowfall. Don’t eat the 70 calories-apiece fudge or blow your calorie budget on the 500 a slice pecan pie. If you just can’t part with the baking tradition, why not bake something your friends and family love, but you could do without? Or ship all of the goodies (every last one!) off to work or to school with the kids. Having these seemingly small and harmless treats around is temptation you don’t need. You can also lighten up your recipes. Use applesauce or mashed banana to replace some of the fat, use margarine instead of butter, remove some of the egg yolks and substitute sweetener for sugar.

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