5 ways to eat without gaining weight over Christmas

If you too need a mental jog for your emotional comfort on how to enjoy the rich foods set in front of you this week, read on. Kelly Stallings, Health Psychotherapist, helps out by offering 5 ways to eat without gaining weight this Christmas:

1.       Use your salad plate for your meal. This will naturally cut at least 200 calories. You can fill your plate since it’s a smaller size. Since humans are visual eaters, you will feel that this ‘full’ plate will fill you up and satisfy you.

2.       Walk every day. Whether you take a walk alone to center your thoughts and prepare for your day or you walk with family and friends to socialize, make sure you walk everyday to get physical activity that will burn calories.

3.       Focus on the social aspect of the holidays instead of the food. If you are more excited about seeing your family and friends than you are about eating Grandma’s cookie plate, you will not eat as much since that is not the focus.

4.       Eat whatever you choose in moderation. Don’t restrict yourself from your favorite holiday foods. That is a set up for a binge. Your will power to not eat these foods will only last a certain length of time and then you will switch into rationalization mode. Rationalizing food typically leads to over indulgence. So eat just a small amount of whatever you want and enjoy every bite!

5.       Wear form-fitting clothes during the holidays to be a constant motivator to make good food decisions and maintain your figure. If you feel good in your little black dress, you will not be as tempted to eat everything on the dessert tray and bust the zipper!

The San Diego Entertainer thanks Kelly Stallings for her tips on eating and enjoying this Christmas! Kelly Stallings is a licensed psychotherapist, speaker and author of Life is Mental: Think Thin to Live Thin, the simple solution for addressing the mental aspect of weight loss.  She has more than 14 years of experience working with people to create significant changes in their life including increased overall physical health by training them on the appropriate uses of cognitive behavioral techniques for healthy living. Kelly’s book and training has been featured on several television news shows, radio shows and popular magazines. She is a dynamic speaker who quickly engages the audience with her warm bubbly ‘no fluff’ personality.

Photo from @paulapaulac via Flikr