How to Keep Your Weight Down During the Holidays
A Tribute to Michel Guérard
As the holidays are approaching many of us are thinking of organizing nice parties and dinners with family and friends. These are moments of joy and love, and we shouldn't have to put a bémol on this enjoyment just because we're worried about gaining weight.
Some of us work in places where Christmas gifts are offered in abundance, and each year the temptation is high to go into the office kitchen and graze on these delicious candies and cookies all day.
Maintaining a healthy weight can present even more challenges during the holidays than throughout the rest of the year. According to some research, most of the weight that individuals gain each year is gained over the holiday season.
In this blog, Dr. Dominique Fradin-Read would like to suggest a few tips to help you avoid putting weight on during this period.
Plan ahead
Mark the holiday events on your calendar and decide which days you'll be a bit more relaxed with your food and which days you'll stick to your normal routine and be stricter with your calorie intake.
Keep the picture of a balanced plate in mind
Holiday meals are generally rich in carbs and low in protein.
It is important to include a good amount of protein with every meal, as it promotes fullness, reduces hunger longer, and burns more calories than carbs during digestion.
For these weight-management benefits, you should include at least 20–30 grams of protein in each meal.
Good sources of protein include meat, poultry, fish, and some plant foods like beans, lentils and quinoa.
Watch your portion size
When the holidays arrive, it can be easy to overload your plate especially if you go to parties where buffets are offered.
Eating larger portion sizes than usual will contribute to weight gain. The best way to overcome this is to control your serving sizes or use a smaller plate.
And do not go a second time to serve yourself if food is offered as self-service!
Increase fiber in your diet
Eating more fiber will help you feel full faster and reduce hunger.
Some studies show that increased dietary fiber can reduce total calorie intake, which may help prevent weight gain over the holidays
Unfortunately, many common holiday foods lack adequate amounts of fiber.
On your plate, try to increase the green zone that corresponds to vegetables.Green leafy veggies and legumes will bring you more fiber. This will also help reduce the portion of the carbs on our plate as you will feel full faster.
Choose your snacks wisely
During the holiday season, the temptation is high indulge in unhealthy snacks like cookies and other goodies that are offered to you directly or are around where you work.
Remember that when treats are easy to access, you are more likely to snack unnecessarily.
At home, this problem can be solved by keeping treats out of sight.
This strategy is more difficult to avoid in situations where you cannot control it, such as at your workplace or a party. Try to be mindful of your habits. If you cannot refrain from over-snacking after starting, it will be best to avoid snacking altogether.
You can also prepare some healthy snacks to keep handy such as fruits, nuts and veggies.
Careful with desserts
Desserts are offered everywhere during the holiday season. This obviously leads to excessive consumption of sugar (and fats), a common cause of weight gain.
Instead of eating dessert after every meal, allow yourself to indulge two to three days a week and try to just focus on your favorites and ditch the rest. Eat slowly and you might leave half of it on your plate once your sweet tooth feels satisfied.
Limit caloric beverages
During the holidays, we tend to drink more alcohol, sodas and other calorie-rich beverages.
These drinks add a significant amount of sugar and empty calories to your diet and increase the risk of weight gain.
On top of that, alcohol often decreases the ability to control appetite, another reason for weight gain.
Limiting your intake of high-calorie beverages will certainly help you control your weight during the holiday season.
Practice mindful eating
During the holiday season, people often are in a rush to accomplish all they want to do in a day which frequently leads to multitasking during meals.
Studies show that those who eat while distracted are more likely to overeat because they do not pay attention to their body’s fullness signals.
To prevent this you should practice mindful eating and focus on your meal instead of being distracted.
Do not eat too fast and enjoy the food with a relaxed mind as this will help you keep your full attention on your plate, rather than on your to-do list.
Increase your physical activity
Common holiday traditions include sedentary habits such as sitting on a couch with family, and watching movies on TV, often accompanied by snacking on sweets.
It will be helpful to suggest adding some kind of activity that you can share with your family, such as going for a walk. This can get your mind off food and allow you to bond with your loved ones differently.
Get enough sleep
Not getting enough sleep is frequent during the holidays and this may cause weight gain.
Sleep restriction increases hunger ultimately leading to higher calorie intake.
In addition, inadequate sleep disturbs the circadian rhythm and has been proven to lower the basal metabolic rate.
Getting at least 7 hours of good sleep on most nights during the holidays will contribute to keeping your weight in a good place.
Manage your stress
Holidays are recognized as periods of intense joy but also intense stress! We all have so much to achieve to get ready on time for our parties or events, this, added to our regular schedule, contributes to increased stress in our lives.
It is well known that stress influences the levels of cortisol which in turn causes weight gain, as they have been linked to greater food intake.
Stress can also increase emotional eating and cause more cravings for unhealthy snacks.
For these reasons, it is important to keep stress levels under control in general but even more during the holidays, when you might be busy and surrounded by an abundance of food.
Use all the techniques that work for you to reduce the stress exercise, meditation, listening to music … and this will help you keep your weight down.
Dr. Fradin-Read would like to offer a Christmas recipe as a tribute to the famous French Chef Michel Guérard, “a vanguard of the nouvelle cuisine,” who created "the great slimming cuisine" (La grande cuisine minceur). Dr. Read had the great joy of working with him for several years as the medical director of the Les Pres d’Eugénie resort in the southwest of France.
She often mentions him in podcasts or articles about weight loss, and the VitaLifeMD nutrition program is inspired by the notion of “pleasure in food,” which was such an important component of Michels’s cooking philosophy.
Michel passed away in August while Dr. Read was traveling in France, and she was profoundly saddened by his death. He would be happy to see one of his recipes presented here, and I hope that everyone will enjoy cooking and savoring it.
Ratatouille, a French Provençal dish, is typically a rustic tomato-based stew of chopped squash, eggplant, onion and bell pepper. Chef Michel Guérard elevated the dish into what he called confit byaldi, a delicate casserole of thinly sliced vegetables instead of rough. His recipe differed from ratatouille by not frying the vegetables, removing peppers and adding mushrooms.
Thomas Keller adapted this recipe and made some little changes for the Disney & Pixar movie Ratatouille. For example, he added the piperade to this dish.
Chef Michel Guérard in his kitchen
Confit Byaldi
Confit Byaldi Recipe
Ingredients
Piperade:
2 red pepper (or 1 red and 1 yellow)
1 clove garlic
250g cherry tomatoes (or 3 tomatoes peeled)
1 sprig thyme
1 bay leaf
1 sprig flat-leaf parsley ( I didn’t use)
1 onion
Olive oil
Vegetables:
1-2 zucchini (sliced in 1/16-inch rounds)
1-2 eggplants (sliced in 1/16-inch rounds)
1 yellow zucchini sliced (me: 1 yellow tomato)
3-4 tomatoes (sliced in 1/16-inch rounds) (4 Mushrooms-optional)
2 cloves garlic
Thyme leaves
Olive oil
Preparation
Heat the oven to 250 C / 450 F or even better a grill. Place the red peppers under the grill or put them in the oven until the skin is black. Use a baking tray with parchment paper.
Remove the skin from the peppers. Try to use Turkish peppers which have more flavor than the Dutch peppers. Turkish peppers are different in shape.
Cook a chopped onion/shallot in olive oil. Then add roughly chopped peppers and tomatoes incl. garlic and herbs. Cook for 10min on low heat with lid.
Turn off the heat after 10min and let it rest for 30-60min. Remove Bay leaf and sprig. After it cooled down put it in a food-processor and mix.
Now drizzle it in an oven-proof dish
Arrange the vegetable slices on top. Drizzle with chopped garlic, thyme leaves and a good dash of olive oil.
Cover with lid or parchment paper and alu foil and put in the pre-heated oven 140 C or 280 F for 2hours
After 2hours remove the cover and put it under a grill for 10-15min or in the oven by 250 C or 500 F until it is nicely colored.
Absolutely delicious! It will taste even better on day 2. But unfortunately, there will probably be nothing left!
Let us know if you try this recipe. Send us photos @VitalifeMD!