Where I come from we celebrate Easter this week so I thought I should write something about making healthy choices during the holidays. The Easter holidays start on Friday, 25, and end on Tuesday, 29. As every year we will be going to my parents house (they live in another city) and stay there for a couple of days. My father is from Greece so we will eat a lot of greek dishes for easter (although the greeks celebrate much later this year), lamb for example. We eat a lot of food during the Easter. It's all about the food if you ask me ; ). Also we love sweets, so we eat a lot of chocolate eggs and candy. So is this a problem? Should we eat what we want during the holidays and not worry about the extra weight we might put on? Should we panic when the scale is laughing at us?
Here are my thoughts. Firstly, it's ok to indulge sometimes. Eat what you really really enjoy and don't feel bad about it. Losing weight and keeping a healthy lifestyle shouldn't be about living a boring life where everything is forbidden. But, you don't have to go crazy. You don't have to eat EVERYTHING on the table. I guarantee that there are some things on there that you don't even like that much, so don't "waste" calories on that. Secondly, don't go all in everyday, choose one or two days where you can eat all your "forbidden" foods and try to eat healthy the rest of the days. Thirdly, when eating all those family dinners the rest of the days during the holidays, try to choose the healthy foods on the table, go for the "clean" stuff, the protein (protein makes you full and helps build muscles), the vegetables, fill up on that, and just add a little bit of the other stuff. Lastly, get some exercise done! At least go for a power walk each day! I will bring my trainers and go for a run a couple of times when I am at my parents' house. This way I can eat a lot and not worry too much about putting on weight.
Also, I would like to say that you shouldn't panic if the scale says that you have gained weight during the holidays. The scale is most likely lying! Why? Because it takes a lot more to actually put on fat weight! When you have been eating unhealthy for a couple of days your body carries extra fluid and that's most likely why you have put on weight. Go back to normal and you should be back on your normal weight in zero time.
This is a picture from one of our Easter dinners. We start off with some meze (greek small dishes/finger food) before the lamb which is often served with potatoes. I would say that everything on the table is ok to eat, in fact, more than ok, it's good for you! The white creamy thing is tsatziki (greek yogurt, garlic, cucumber, salt & pepper), which is super healthy and tasty. Peas, salmon, anchovy, feta cheese, salad, eggs, olives...and ouzo not so healthy...
So now you know how to make healthy choices during the holidays!
//Nicole Hellgren
