Beating The Holiday Bulge

Ebony, Dec, 1998 by Charlotte Lyons, Kelly Starling

Grandma's baked macaroni and cheese. Aunt Mattie's collard greens. Cousin Ida's blue-ribbon spaghetti pie. Many start dreaming of Thanksgiving and Christmas spreads weeks before the seasons strike. One thing we don't look forward to, however, is the holiday bulge. According to the American Heart Association, some people gain 5 to 10 unwanted pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. That doesn't have to happen to you. With a few seamless alterations to your menu and lifestyle, you can have your feast and eat it without looking--and feeling--like a turkey.

The first thing folks begin worrying about when someone wants to fiddle with their food, experts say, is taste. When the product says low in fat, some choose to read it as low on flavor. That's one thing people raised on soul-filled cooking refuse to tolerate.

"If people think that taste will be lost, they will be hesitant in trying anything," says Leslie Curtis, director of the weight-control information network for the National Institutes of Health. "That's understandable, especially if this recipe has been passed down from grandmother to granddaughter or from father to son. We eat for a lot of reasons other than hunger. We eat to socialize, to show love and affection. All those need to be accounted for when you're asking people to change how they eat."

Dr. Henri Pate of Hampton University says people should begin experimenting early. Weeks or even months before the holidays, present your family with some of the new and healthy variations of traditional favorites. Bake a sweet potato pie using reduced-fat margarine instead of butter, she says. Make stuffing with turkey instead of pork sausage. Don't tell anyone about your substitutions and see if they notice a difference. If no one has any gripes, you've found a painless way to introduce some healthful eating to the holidays.

Begin your research at the bookstore. There are plenty of heart-conscious cookbooks to help you find your way. Everything you need from low-fat cheeses to egg substitutes and healthy cooking sprays can be bought at the supermarket. If you prefer natural alternatives, you can use brown sugar or honey instead of white sugar. Try brown rice instead of white rice or wheat rolls instead of the popular white ones. Do a little research and tailor the suggestions to your needs.

"Things have improved so much in flavor that it's not a real problem to reduce the amount of sugar, fat and cholesterol," says Pate, associate professor of nutrition for Hampton. "You can buy nonfat salad dressing. You can buy reduced-fat or lean ham. Or you can buy a regular one and remove as much fat as possible from around the edges."

Experimentation is key to transforming holiday meals. Tradition--from what we include on our menus to how food is prepared--leads a lot of our holiday planning.

"[Winter holidays] are actually the time of year when people get the most balance in their meals," says Curtis. "There's cranberry sauce, turkey, sweet potatoes, rolls, greens. Our basic dishes cover all of the food groups. It's how we prepare them and what we put in them that sets us up to gain weight."

Instead of deep-frying, try oven-frying or baking. Season food with spices and herbs as an alternative to adding salt. Use skim or reduced-fat milk instead of whole milk. Curtis says people interested in eating right don't have to overhaul the entire holiday menu. Moderation is the word people should remember as we approach the Christmas season. It's okay to have a little of the fatty stuff. If the candied yams just don't taste the same without following grandma's recipe to a "tee," stick with a good thing. Then make sure you have plenty of other heart-healthy options on the table.

Your plate should contain several servings from each food group, experts say. Use the food guide pyramid to guide your selections. Rather than filling up on meats, make sure your plate also includes equal parts of starches, fruits and vegetables. A quick way to follow this rule is to make sure you add color to your plate. Vegetables come in shades that span from bright red to vibrant green. In most cases, the more colorful your plate, the more you can be assured you are getting a good balance. At cocktail parties, stay away from the fatty hors d'oeuvres. Instead, load up on offerings from the fruit and vegetable trays.

Another tip to eating healthy during the holidays is to eat several small meals throughout the day. Some people fast until the Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner to make sure they have plenty of room for all the delicious meals. This behavior actually sabotages our efforts to eat right.

"What happens is by the time you get in front of food, you are less inclined to make wise choices," says Curtis. "You say, `I'll treat myself.' But in reality, you are not treating yourself. You are moving toward gaining more weight. When you don't eat, you set your body up in feast-or-famine mode. When you finally start ingesting food, the body thinks it's time to protect itself, so you wind up overeating."