It’s difficult not to gain weight over the holidays, with so many events centered around food during November and December. First, there’s Thanksgiving Dinner–a day when it’s become traditional to stuff yourself until you feel like you might explode–then there are all of the Christmas parties at friends’ houses, the office holiday party, and of course, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. All in all, there are at least 4 or 5 high calorie meals that can lead to a pound or two of weight gain on their own. Add in all of those yummy treats that you can’t resist at the local bakery or at the mall, and you can easily gain 10 or more pounds during the last two months of the year.
But you don’t have to stress out about holiday weight gain if you follow a few simple strategies when you attend holiday parties or have a big family meal. The first rule of thumb is to not go to an event absolutely starving. If you have a snack or a small meal first (depending on if there are going to be hors d’oeuvres served or a full meal), you won’t be tempted to eat as much while you’re there.
The second strategy is to control what you eat. If you’re bringing a dish, bring something healthy or low-fat, or make substitutions in the dish you are planning on bringing to make it healthier, such as substituting low-fat or fat-free sour cream for regular, light margarine for butter, fat-free half and half for heavy cream, and so on. These simple substitutions can save a lot of calories and fat grams per serving in any dish, and it’s likely that you won’t be able to taste the difference. Limit cheese where you can, and avoid dishes that contain heavy or creamy sauces.
The third rule of thumb is to be smart when you fill up your plate at the actual event. If you’re being served finger foods, fill up as much of your plate with fruits or veggies as possible, and only take small portions of foods that involve a lot of cheese, salt, or a high-fat meat such as sausage or pepperoni. If it’s a full dinner, picture your plate as being divided into four quadrants. Fill one quadrant with lean meat, such as turkey. A 3 oz serving is about the size of a deck of cards. Fill another with starches, like bread, potatoes, rice, or corn. The other two quadrants can be filled with as many vegetables as you can squeeze in. This is a great strategy for filling up a healthy plate that adds up to be around 500 calories. When you go back for dessert, choose a single-crust fruit pie or pumpkin pie, or a gelatin dessert. This will have far less calories than many other desserts, and won’t leave you feeling quite so guilty.
Have you ever been out shopping for Christmas gifts and seen that an item you wanted to buy was out of stock, but that there was an item almost like it, but not quite the same, still on the shelf? Did it make you want to buy the other item? It probably did, according to a recent study on consumer behavior. But you can keep from falling for it if you’re an educated consumer. Check out the Christmas Toys blog for more information about this marketing strategy and how to avoid falling into a store’s trap.
If you and your child’s other parent are separated or divorced, the holidays can be a very difficult time. Deciding who goes where and at what time can be a stressful experience for you as well as your child. In this video, a divorce lawyer offers his tips and advice on keeping the Christmas season stress free for your children, even in a divided family.
Cooking meals for your family while you’re trying to get everything done for the holidays can cause a significant amount of stress. As with most things, if you plan ahead, you can get rid of a lot of that stress. Freezer cooking, or once a month cooking, is a great way to take the cooking chores off of your plate. To get started, check out the Christmas Goodies blog for part 1 and part 2 of a series on freezer cooking.
For many people, the Christmas season involves more stress than enjoyment. Between all of the cleaning and shopping and cooking, there is little time to sit down and enjoy the holidays with your family. Does this sound familiar? If so, don’t worry–you can conquer your Christmas stress with some advanced planning.
Organized Christmas has an 18-week “Holiday Grand Plan” that makes it easier to tackle the mountain of tasks that come along with Christmas. Although the Grand Plan technically started on August 30th, it’s not too late to jump in. After all, any amount of advanced planning is bound to make your holiday season easier.
Their holiday grand plan sets aside each week to complete certain tasks. (Don’t worry, there are only a few tasks for each week, so it’s not too overwhelming. If you need to catch up from the previous four weeks, add a task from a previous week to each day and you’ll be caught up in no time.) They dedicate each week to a certain area of the house, where you clean and organize in preparation for your holiday guests. If you aren’t stuck trying to do everything at once, you won’t feel nearly as stressed when December comes around.
These lists also help you to focus on certain tasks and know when to stop working on a particular task. Both of these are effective ways to manage your tasks in order to minimize stress. Remember, you don’t have to get it all done at once-you have all week to get it done. If you follow their plan, by the time the week before Christmas comes around, you won’t have anything left to do but sit back and enjoy the time with your family. Now doesn’t that sound nice?
If you often find yourself needing to stop and take a deep breath during the holiday season, you might want to bookmark this video. It features 10 useful tips for de-stressing during the holiday season, and the advice is wonderful.
It’s no secret that Christmas can be a time when you’re under a lot of stress, between all of the shopping and parties and cooking and planning. (And if it wasn’t, then this blog wouldn’t exist, would it?) There are some simple ways you can get rid of some of your Christmas stress, though. Organized Christmas, a web site devoted to helping you organize your holiday season and take some of the stress out at the same time, offers a list of 10 simple ideas for a stress-free holiday season. Check it out and see if there are any you could use to take some of the stress out of your own Christmas season.
Whether you want to relieve some of your own stress or someone elses, new organizers are a great way to clear the clutter and get rid of some elements in your environment that could be stressing you out.
Last week, Santa’s Mall had a featured article on purchasing organizer gifts from a couple different web sites, along with some interesting product recommendations. If you need to clear out some of your own clutter or know someone who’s working hard to do just that, an organizer is probably the perfect gift.
Putting together Christmas photo cards doesn’t have to be a stressful experience. If you plan ahead and start putting your Christmas cards together now, you can save yourself some time and relieve a bit of your Christmas stress. For some reasons and suggestions, visit the Christmas Cards Blog.
Sometimes it seems like the Christmas season should be renamed to Stressmas, right? Comedienne Amy Sloan totally agrees, and she’s written a hilarious song to the tune of the 12 Days of Christmas that pays homage to the 12 Days of Stressmas and everyone who contributes to that stress, from the butcher to the best friend to the mother-in-law. Watch, enjoy, and laugh a little bit of that stress away.