Subject: Vancouver Sun Placement
From: "Merilee:::Kern Communications" <[email-masked]>
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Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 09:58:52 -0800

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/curb+your+eating+drinking+holiday+weight+gain/2365212/story.html

How to curb your eating, drinking and holiday weight gain

Plan ahead and choose your Christmas cheer with care to limit those extra pounds

By Karen Gram, VANCOUVER SUN
December 20, 2009

Choose your drinks carefully because those with more alcohol contain more calories.
Photograph by: Mikael Kjellstrom, Canwest News Service
Here it comes again. The season that conspires against all our efforts to control our waistlines.

Not only are we confronted with menus laden with fat, sugar and liquor, but the dark, cold weather makes us want that stuff even more. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, the average American gains seven to 10 pounds over holidays. Canadians can't be far off of that. 

Resisting the plates of yummies that circle the party rooms can be a major challenge. Same with the gravy, stuffing and mashed potatoes at feasts. 

Don't count on will power, say experts. That is just too hard.

Instead, they recommend planning, tricks and subterfuge. With these strategies, maintaining your pre-holiday weight is actually do-able.

Dr. Michael Lyon, adjunct professor in the Food, Nutrition and Health program at the University of B.C. and author of Hunger Free Forever, lives by his strategies. He was fat as a boy and he knows his weaknesses. He also knows the science of volumetrics, which found that loading up on foods high in fibre and water, vegetables basically, fills you up so that you naturally want less of the fatty foods. We asked him for strategies to maintain our weight during the holidays. We also gleaned a few tips from others including TOPS Club (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), a U.S.-based, non-profit weight-loss education and support organization, and registered and licensed dietitian Susan Burke March.

Dinners

Serve and eat three or four vegetables (roasted or steamed) at the holiday feast meals or serve a high-fibre soup as a first course.

"You can cut calories in half by just doing that," Lyon says adding that you can gain a pound of fat in one meal if you aren't careful. 

Plan ahead for restaurant meals. Know the menu in advance so you can choose rationally about what you want before hunger and smells take control.

"Make sure you eat a high protein meal in the morning. That is the most important single thing to do," says Lyon. "It really helps to keep the blood sugar from starting on the roller coaster."

TOPS recommends you make your own stuffing with whole-grain bread and turkey or chicken rather than use boxed stuffing mix. Increase the nutritional value by incorporating fruits, such as apples, pears, and cranberries, or almonds and walnuts.

Canned cranberry sauce often contains excess amounts of high-fructose corn syrup. Make your own cranberry sauce by pureeing dried cranberries in orange juice and water, or substitute the sauce with fruit-flavoured gelatin.

Parties

Kill your appetite an hour to 90 minutes before you go so that you are able to eat less and more slowly at the party. Lyon suggests eating a small amount of both protein and carbohydrate such as a Wasa cracker with cheese. Other options include an apple and nuts or a small plain yogurt with banana.

Drink lime-flavoured bubbly water with ice instead of wine, beer or spirits. Lyon says that one ounce of beer or wine equals one ounce of fat. "It is like they are spiked with fat."

If you choose a sweet alcoholic drink, say rum and coke, you get double the fat, he says. "The bubbly water gives the feeling that you are getting something substantial and you avoid the sweet or alcoholic drinks."

Speaking of drinking, Susan Burke March, a registered, licensed dietitian, certified diabetes educator and author of Making Weight Control Second Nature: Living Thin Naturally has another suggestion.

Keep a glass in your hand. If you're holding a glass, it's more difficult to hold a plate and eat, she says. Make a plate of "good choice" foods to begin with, enjoy it, and then keep a glass of water or club soda in your hand for the rest of the evening.

Burke March also says to steer clear of crab cakes, which are typically breaded and deep-fried. Enjoy pieces of steamed or boiled shrimp dipped in cocktail sauce for a calorie-light alternative.

Dance. If it's an option, dancing not only burns calories, it is also fun and keeps you away from the food tables.

They are ubiquitous at this time of year. If you are like Lyon and can't stop once you start, don't start, he says.

If you are able to put some limits on your treat consumption, there are a number of tricks to help you keep from over-indulging.

Throw away treats prepared or bought for an occasion and left over.

Keep treats at work at a distance. Research shows that if the treats are within arm range, we eat many more than if we have to get up to get them. Research also found the old maxim, out of sight out of mind to be true. 

Cravings

It's not just that the temptations are all around us, it's that we actually crave them.

Lyon says the reason for that is the long dark winter. Even people with a little Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) crave increased carbs. Luckily, there are ways to minimize the effects.

Stay active and choose outdoor activity during the day. That is one of the best ways to avoid the doldrums that cause the cravings. Exercise also increases your metabolism so you store less fat.

Increase vitamin D intake. We get most of our vitamin D from the sun, but we don't get much sun in the winter. Without it, we develop SAD and crave foods we don't need. The recommended daily vitamin D supplement is 1,000 IU, but Lyon thinks experts will eventually recommend 4,000 IUs. "They have never found a toxic level, but they have found many who are deficient, especially those with darker skins."

The holiday season is stressful enough without having to worry about SAD or controlling your will power. Instead, if you use planning, tricks and subterfuge, you can sail through the season with your waistline intact.

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