I love the holiday season! It’s
always exciting when the party invitations start rolling in and we
start to imagine all the yummy foods we will get to try during the
season. It’s really tempting to give in to wanting to eat rich comfort
food and drink sugar-laden alcoholic beverages at a holiday party.
If you don’t have any health concerns or think you have your body’s
well-being wired, then by all means, let her rip and load on the gravy! But
many of us are taking serious, committed steps to leading a consistent
healthier lifestyle. And a few unhealthy holiday parties and meals with the
wrong balance of nutrition and toxic calories can really
throw a person off course. So, I created this easy to follow guide that you
can refer to throughout the holidays, and apply during your busier,
unhealthier busy times, or at any holiday buffet where you find yourself
grazing. This post is designed to help you identify foods that are more
likely to have better nutrition, and less likely to be loaded with the bad
stuff, while allowing you to pick from the entire menu and keep it all in
balance. Why not keep your healthy momentum going through the holidays?
Enjoy and master the art of healthy holiday eating!

6 Healthy Holiday Eating
Tips

1. Know What to Avoid or
Reduce

You can be way ahead of the game and give yourself a huge healthy
holiday eating helping hand by just remembering a short list of the foods
that wreak havoc on your body, and identifying them on any given menu before
you decide what, or how much, to put on your plate. The top culprits in my
opinion are refined sugar, dairy, refined gluten,
processed foods & alcohol.

• Alcohol is easy enough to identify.
  I know, I know, you really want to enjoy that eggnog martini or glass of
  wine with everyone else. If anyone gets it, I do. In my less-healthy life I
  enjoyed more than my share of alcoholic beverages on many
  occasions. Overcoming that urge to indulge in drink can be daunting.
  But guess what? There may be a good reason to try. Consuming alcohol is
  the absolute worst thing you can do to your body if you are truly trying to
  stay healthy and vibrant. If you think the holidays are stressful, you
  actually make it worse by putting your body through the cycle of having to
  process alcohol over and over again. So, if you must, try to keep it to just
  a couple drinks, and drink more water than you do alcoholic beverages.
   So, not to put a damper on your fun, just try to be mindful and
  remember your healthy promises to yourself.
• Refined sugar finds it’s way into
  almost everything we eat if we aren’t being vigilant and paying attention.
  Five places where you know you will encounter loads of sugar are: dessert,
  cranberry sauce, possibly in pureed soups, sweet potato side dishes that
  might be mixed with sugar, and your before dinner cocktail.
• Dairy can also be easily disguised
  on a holiday menu. It can show up in your gravy, vegetable casserole, mashed
  potatoes, dessert, and before dinner cocktails.
• You will find refined
  gluten in anything with
  white or even wheat flour, and some bottled sauces– pretty simple. So
  that includes white pasta, couscous, orzo, bread, gravy, bottled salad
  dressings, stuffing, the toasted bread base of bruschetta, breading on meat
  cutlets or sprinkled over casseroles, phyllo dough, puff pastry, and many pie
  crusts and cakes.
• And processed foods just boils down to foods
  that are not in their most original, whole form possible. Some examples of
  processed foods that you will find at Thanksgiving are instant mashed
  potatoes, instant gravy, manufactured vegan turkey (a homemade tofurkey is
  way better), canned pie filling, fried onions from a box, stuffing from a
  box– you get the picture?

2. Know What to Look For, Load Up on, and
Enjoy!

Now that we got the list of stuff to try to avoid (not very fun at
all), this is where the real fun begins. Here is your opportunity to take
yourself on a special Thanksgiving whole food, alkalizing adventure and try
things from a completely different perspective than what you might be used
to. Here are examples of great whole, healthier foods you might find on the
menu: Cooked leafy greens, fresh vegetables of any kind, salad,
starchy root vegetables (like carrots, parsnips, turnips and beets), whole
grains & legumes, fresh fruit (especially berries and citrus),
homemade vegan creations.

• Cooked Leafy Greens, Salad, and Fresh
  Vegetables are a no brainer. If you see them, run to them. Put
  them on your plate before anything else, and the more the merrier. Try to
  fill half your plate with green vegetables, and just make sure you keep in
  mind any of the avoid items from the last section that might be mixed in,
  like cheese topping, or cream in your vegetable casserole. Look for
  vegetables that are simply prepared with minimal ingredients. You might be
  amazed at how much you relish a few great ingredients when they are
  highlighted and unmasked by gobs of other stuff.
• Starchy Root Vegetables, especially
  some of the less known varieties like parsnips and turnips, are becoming more
  and more popular as more people turn to satiating, nutritious holiday
  ingredients. In a recent holiday soup recipe for pumpkin
  potato leek soup, I used parsnip to help bring out the creaminess
  with out the use of dairy products. Focus on dishes where you can see the
  vegetable cut into pieces and roasted. The pureed version may have cream,
  butter, and even sugar as part of the recipe.
• Whole Grains & Legumes are
  another thing to look for. You might be surprised at the variety of whole
  grains and legumes appearing on your holiday menus lately– quinoa, faro,
  brown and wild rice, whole grain pastas, sprouted beans, black-eyed peas,
  lentils, baked beans, oatmeal biscuits or muffins, whole grain
  breads.
• Fresh Fruit, especially berries like
  blueberries, pomegranate, and cranberries (minimally sweetened), add awesome
  antioxidants to help offset the stress of the season. Try having fresh
  berries for dessert, with maybe just a smidgen of the pie.
• Homemade Vegan
  Creations are becoming very
  common on holiday menus. The easiest way to identify a vegan
  “entree” is to look for the stuffed acorn squash, stuffed
  portobello mushroom, or stuffed tofurkey. Homemade tofurkey is a better
  choice than store bought, for the reasons of keeping it as minimally processed
  as possible. Identify the vegan in the room and try a little of what
  they’re eating.

3. Know How To Fill Your
Plate

You can follow a simple guideline on how you fill your plate with
which types of foods. My preferred rule of thumb is:

• 1/2: Green Vegetables
• 1/4: Lean, Clean Protein
• 1/8: Healthy Carbs (brown rice, quinoa, yams, carrots, beets, low
  glycemic fruit)
• 1/8: Healthy Fats (flax, salmon, avocado, seeds, nuts, healthy
  oils)

4. Practice the Clean Eating 80/20 Rule

This is a very easy to follow rule that you can just keep in the
back of your head all throughout the holiday season. It basically means to
keep the food and drink healthy and clean 80% of the time, and enjoy the indulgences
20% of the time. For example, if you eat fresh vegetables, whole grains,
berries, and lean turkey breast for 80% of your holiday meal, and fit
everything else into 20%, this is a very easy way to at least keep your
healthy momentum up if all else fails. On a larger scale, if you are in the
middle of the busy holiday party season and you have 3 holiday parties to go
to on a given week, and you eat 4 meals per day, just make sure that your
breakfasts and lunches, and a couple dinners for that week are in the clean
and healthy zone, and then at the parities you can let yourself enjoy a
little and not have to think as much about every little thing you eat off the
buffet.

5. Stay Hydrated

Often, when we are partying and celebrating, we forget to insert
the hydration. Especially if you plan to drink alcohol during the holidays,
be sure to insist that the water always be there, even if you have to bring
your own water bottle to the event. Here is an article from
the Mayo Clinic on how much water you should be drinking per
day for your body and weight. Just because you’re at a party doesn’t mean
your body doesn’t need proper hydration. Make an effort to hydrate more this
holiday season, and you will notice the difference.

6. Detox
Between Celebrations

You can give your digestive system, liver, and kidneys a lot of
assistance by incorporating a couple of detox friendly habits into your daily
routine during the holidays.

• First, find a healthy detox tea that you love and drink it every
  night before you go to bed. Make sure it is a good quality like this Happy
  Kidney-Liver Tea by Create Your Health, or something from a
  reputable, holistic health market or licensed herbalist.
• Second, try to fit a cleansing juice into your morning routine.
  An ideal juice could be made from beets, cucumber, celery, carrot, kale,
  ginger root, & apples. Or try a green
  food supplement mixed into your morning smoothie.
• Third, try to eat a raw-food, plant based lunch every day. If you
  want protein add some raw seeds and nuts. The raw lunch will help cleanse you
  and energize you for the next indulgent party.

And One Bonus Healthy Holiday Eating
Tip: Don’t Deprive Yourself! 

When we consciously try to deprive ourselves at the holiday table,
we are creating an inner conflict with our subconscious habit of celebrating
with delicious, rich foods. If you try this, you may be successful at one or
two parties, but after a while your subconscious urge to binge on roast beef
with Yorkshire pudding will prevail, and then, instead of giving your body
the consistent healthy foods, you will give it the unhealthy stuff that will
set you back. Deliberate deprivation is a great recipe for failure in your
healthy eating endeavors. So use these tools to enjoy a fantastic, balanced,
and satiating holiday season while keeping your awesome, clean, lean, and
healthy edge. Enjoy and happy holidays!

If you enjoyed reading about how to keep a healthy edge during the
holidays, you’r’e going to love our Pure Plant Based Community! Check
it out here!