Duke Medicine: Five simple tricks to lighten holiday season eating

Does your annual holiday tradition include eating first and feeling guilty later? Don't let your fork, or your psyche, do all that heavy lifting.

Posted 1:50 a.m. Dec 11, 2012 — Updated 1:50 a.m. Dec 11, 2012

Duke Medicine

Does your annual holiday tradition include eating first and feeling guilty later? Don’t let your fork, or your psyche, do all that heavy lifting. Samuel Blackwell, MD, medical director of Duke Primary Care Peak Weight Loss Clinic in Apex, offers five simple tricks to lighten your load, trim the guilt and savor the magic of the season.

Eat dessert for breakfast. Research suggests that eating something sweet at breakfast can control cravings throughout the day and may help maintain weight loss.

Think like a vegan. Nobody is suggesting you give up red meat! What you should do, says Blackwell, is choose vegetables first at holiday dinners and party buffets.

Thicken your food, not your waistline. A new study finds the thicker a low-fat food is, the more satisfying it will be. With this in mind, Blackwell suggests including creamy soups that use pureed vegetables as your base (rather than cream) for your festive meal’s appetizer.

Eat at home. While it may be more convenient to grab a bite to eat after a busy day of holiday shopping, a new study finds that families who eat out consume more calories.

Don’t use food to de-stress. Instead, take a walk, call a friend or join a support group.

For more tricks to lighten your fork's load this holiday season, go to the full post at DukeHealth.org. Duke Medicine, Go Ask Mom's sponsor, offers health tips and information every Tuesday.

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