Happy and Healthy Holidays or Party on and Pay for It Later?

It's that time of year, isn't it? Lots of parties going on with plenty of delicious foods and decadent adult beverages. It's easy to gain at least a pound or more during the next couple of weeks (yeah, that large cup of eggnog has about 400 calories in it - before adding any booze).

There are basically three different ways to handle this: you can forget all about grams of fat and sugar, and eat with reckless abandon (probably common), or you can shun every treat that comes your way (kind of sad), or you can find a good spot somewhere in the middle. Like with the eggnog I mentioned earlier. Choose a soymilk version and cut the calories in half. The flavor's still good and it's not quite as thick, which I actually like better. I think another good idea is to nibble on something healthy before you run off to a party. Like an apple or a piece of whole grain bread with some peanut or almond butter - if you're not super hungry, you can enforce a little better control. At least that works for me. If you do the opposite - starve yourself all day with the idea of "saving calories," you just might overindulge in all the holiday goodies, and probably eat way more calories than I saved by not eating earlier. Not a good idea.