Have a Cookie, Go for a Jog: Stress Free Holiday Eating

No, this will not be a blog about cutting calories by going for the salad at a holiday party, or making egg nog with skim milk.  It will be a pass for not beating yourself up about enjoying holiday foods.  How, you ask, can one possibly resist the delectable hors d'oeuvres, or the buttery Christmas cookies or oil-soaked latkes (potato pancakes) without gaining the equivalent of a small shed? Plan your exercise around those eating and drinking fests. 

If you know you have a holiday party that night, eat lightly during the day and do a fat burning cardio workout in the morning: jog, spin, dance, swim etc. If you are lucky enough to be at a party with music and a dance floor, there's your built in exercise. Have a drink, not 5, use a small plate to taste a bit of this and that, and then dance those calories off. 

At the office, when all those amazing trays of cookies and chocolates arrive, have 1 or 2 yummy things, leave the offending room and when you get home, exercise. Another tip: never go to a holiday party or dinner hungry. Have something to eat beforehand so that you don't gobble up all the mini quiches and pigs-in-blankets.  It really all boils down to Math: calories in, calories out.

Here are just a few examples of approximate calorie counts for holiday foods: 1 latke = 264 calories; 2 butter cookies= 120-160 calories; 4 oz of egg nog = 190 calories.  These are all estimates; calories could vary depending on ingredients used and size of portion.  In order to figure out what you'd have to do to burn off those calories, use a calories burned calculator which you can find online or on your mobile device as an app.  Do you have to do a marathon to work off these extra calories? No.  Based on someone weighing 160 lbs, doing an activity for 30 minutes, here are some approximate calories burned: jogging = 250 calories; walking 4 mph = 180 cal.; hot yoga = 255 calories; dancing = 280 cal. ; stationary spin biking = 254.

Enjoy the holidays, don't deprive yourself from enjoying the feasts of the season.  Just remember to do a little extra bit of exercise, and know that come January, the temptations will have lessened and you can go back to salads and fruit.  Now, go eat the roof off that gingerbread house!