Health and Food Over the Holidays

[rousseau]

Since becoming a bit of a health-nut over the past few years I've begun to notice the disparity between my diet and that of most people I know. My wife and I eat a lot of produce, always a sizable amount of fruit at breakfast, and usually a good amount of vegetables throughout the day. We also limit refined sugar whenever we can, don't drink, and are pretty reasonable about our other choices. Where my friends and family seem to indulge in junk and processed foods a lot more than we do.

So the past few years this has created a bit of a nightmare over Christmas, when we're away from home and our own kitchen / grocery shopping for sometimes up to four days, being fed by other people. By the end of it, despite my best efforts, I usually end up feeling like garbage.

So my question here is.. what's your relationship with food over the holidays? Do you tend to indulge in whatever food is offered to you, or do you try to keep it reasonably healthy?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I do most of the cooking, but being Vegetarian, we do brunch, though I have some flights of fancy with a Seitan wrap stuffed with stuffing. Maybe later this year.

We eat a very hearty brunch on Xmas, and that is it in my home. There can be spotty snacking here and there on cookies, but it isn't for a while until the Soft Gingerbread Pretzels come out. Due to the lack of over eating on Xmas, I do a Boxing Day thing with Salmon Cakes ("fresh" salmon) and a green salad. This year, I'll be adding the small crab rangoon pizza.

Doing the cooking myself, really makes it easy to keep things wonderful, but relatively wholesome. Eating at others places can be trying depending on whom is cooking. Our family has some good places to eat, and not so good places to eat.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

My relationship with food over the holidays is an almighty trial. It's a constant act of self control because I'll gorge on cookies and sweets and just about anything that tastes good. Overeating has always been a problem and the Holidays with the copious junk food just makes things worse.

If I'm going to overeat I try to overeat on something wholesome. Also keep the water coming.

If I'm a guest I eat what's served and keep the charcoal tablets handy. There are generally enough choices that I can make it work.

So actually the Holidays aren't really much different than the rest of the year, it's just that the sweets are even more available.

I've been trying to get down a good ten to fifteen pounds and if I can hold the line until after the Holidays I think I'll declare success.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Back in the good old days of family and holidays, I didn't find too much trouble avoiding the worst of it. It was the ever watchful eye of my happy sister-in-law that I was in constant battle with. I had long established myself as one to avoid sweets so that took care of one aspect of unhealthy eating. Sister-in-law, who could best be described a walking dessert had a bit of a sweet tooth would always try to push the cookies and cake under my nose but she knew, and was just being cordial and I would politely refuse. Move along Little Debbie, move along. As for the rest, holidays with family offers such a difficult-to-digest smorgasbord, that I found it relatively easy to fill my plate with the closest things to healthy fare as one could manage. And since there is so much, it was perfectly acceptable to omit the worst of it; the stuff swimming in heavy sauce, foods that have been slathered, and anything that has marshmallow as an ingredient.

The absolute worst situation to be in is the cookout/barbecue/picnic. How do you avoid the enormous slab of meat your proud host is dangling over your plate? But that's a whole other thread.

 

[Lugubert]

Not a problem. I don’t ever eat according to the calendar. My youngest sister will more often than not invite me as well as our other middle sister and their respectively now fairly well extended families, for a quite a lavish dinner. (Our Boxing day is just the 2nd day of Xmas; nothing too special.) Contents will absolutely include our traditional Yule ham, (which is first boiled; then painted and glazed with a mixture of egg, breadcrumbs, and mustard; and then baked). Sis will probably as well offer our Mother’s delicious quite un-Swedish stuffed turkey with all its yummy accessories. They also always feature the special annual Norwegian Yule aquavit besides generous amounts of other applicable drinks. Sleepover required. (It’s a one hour plus from their place to back home for me.)

Not even a problem for my “appointed daughter” who’s gone fairly vegetarian and never touches alcohol. Absolutely no relative of mine questions her as my almost single heiress (not that there is anything resembling a fortune to discuss), and she’s anyway spending the holidays with her blood relatives in the far East.

 

[southernhybrid]

While I do eat lots of healthy foods, I also eat lots of healthy foods. Apparently, since I made it to 70 this way and my weight is about the same it was when I was in high school, I'm not worrying about what I eat. Sweets are my weakness, but I love veggies and fish too. I'm not crazy about other. meats, so I eat small portions of mammals or birds several days a week.

The only thing I over eat during the holidays are sweets, but I weighed myself this morning and my weight was great, and I'm back to aerobics tomorrow, so I'm good. We don't eat anybody else's food, but we do share food our neighbor plus we invited some friends over last weekend to enjoy spouse's cooking. They aren't going to complain about the quality of our food or cooking. it's our life.


Jimmy, a person that eats fish isn't a vegetarian. You're a pescatarian. My ex sister in law used to refer to herself as a vegetarian but she ate fish. Vegetarians don't eat anything that has eyes . The last time I checked, the fish that we eat have eyes.

We've Been eating lunch out everyday as a holiday gift to ourselves. I usually enjoy the food but my GI tract is starting to rebel.

As long as you don't gain weight, I wouldn't be concerned. Sometimes ya gotta just enjoy life's pleasures, as long as you can do it in moderation.....We 1st world babies are extremely fortunate.

 

[rousseau]

As long as you don't gain weight, I wouldn't be concerned. Sometimes ya gotta just enjoy life's pleasures, as long as you can do it in moderation.....We 1st world babies are extremely fortunate.

For me gaining weight isn't a problem because I don't want the junk, the problem comes when there's a lack of alternatives to the junk. My in-laws are fairly healthy, but my parents are still in their old ways of loading up on grease, sugar, meat.

It feels like I'm starting to influence my family, though, and things are getting better. We had a fruit tray / yogurt with breakfast, and a few vegetable dishes with our roast at dinner. At my in-laws we went back to serving dinner, as opposed to finger foods last year which wasn't ideal.

Other than that we always get a lot of chocolate every year, which I really don't want. And especially this year with my wife's pregnancy pounds of refined sugar is something we really don't need. But it's difficult to just throw it out.

 

[Playball40]

Why are you all so judgmental about the foods others eat? There is no such thing as 'bad' food or 'good' food. There is just food.

 

[southernhybrid]

Why are you all so judgmental about the foods others eat? There is no such thing as 'bad' food or 'good' food. There is just food.

Well, some foods certainly have more nutritional value than others. I do think some of us have gone way overboard worrying about every morsel we put into our mouths. Life is to be enjoyed as much as possible, so why not indulge in some foods that are more or less empty calories. I know that intermittent fasting is all the rage and some evidence suggests that it leads to longevity. But, I'm a grazer, in that I eat small amounts of this and that all day long. Fasting would make me miserable. I rarely go two hours during the day without some kind of snack, healthy or unhealthy.

I went back to aerobics yesterday and there is some evidence that suggests that physical exercise is actually more important than what we eat. I ate plenty of "junk food" over the holidays and didn't gain any weight, so I'm not worried about what I eat, as long as my diet is fairly balanced.

Still, this is a first world problem. There are people in parts of the world who are starving to death, who have very few options as to what they eat. We are very fortunate.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Actually ate too much on Boxing Day. I haven't done that in like forever.

Jimmy, a person that eats fish isn't a vegetarian. You're a pescatarian. My ex sister in law used to refer to herself as a vegetarian but she ate fish. Vegetarians don't eat anything that has eyes . The last time I checked, the fish that we eat have eyes.

I often do make with the asterisk, but didn't here.

 

[Treedbear]

Why are you all so judgmental about the foods others eat? There is no such thing as 'bad' food or 'good' food. There is just food.

Have you seen Soylent Green?

 

[rousseau]

Why are you all so judgmental about the foods others eat? There is no such thing as 'bad' food or 'good' food. There is just food.

Well, some foods certainly have more nutritional value than others. I do think some of us have gone way overboard worrying about every morsel we put into our mouths. Life is to be enjoyed as much as possible, so why not indulge in some foods that are more or less empty calories.

I don't care what other people eat, but I do think we would do well by re-framing the good life as something other than eating unhealthy food just because it tastes good.

In my case, I've trained my body to enjoy healthy foods and not unhealthy ones - eating chocolate, candy, and junk isn't an indulgence because I'm more concerned with how what I consume makes me feel, rather than how it tastes. It doesn't take some kind of monastic discipline, it's just how I eat.

But in practice this is the more difficult diet to undertake because the food industry is constantly putting out horribly unhealthy, and addicting food. We have an obesity epidemic because it's a lot easier to grab a Coke and fries, than it is to completely revamp your diet. Honestly, to each their own, people can do whatever they want, but for those who are health conscious it's difficult to live in a society which fetishizes junk food.

I can make a pretty good analogy with alcohol. I also don't drink anymore either, but am likely going to spend the rest of my life having booze pushed on me. Junk food is even more normalized, people can't even comprehend when you say no to ice cream, chocolate, or a donut, or understand when you don't want a pile of greasy, processed meats.