Quick Tips To Lighten Your Christmas Meal

With the holiday season right around the corner, you might be finding yourself growing slightly anxious about what that holiday meal means for your waistline. It’s common knowledge that most Christmas dinners can easily pack away at least 1000 calories, if not more.

Fortunately, if you make a few simple and easy adjustments to what you’re preparing and how you prepare the foods, it doesn’t have to be this way.

While you will typically still take in more calories than normal due to the fact there simply are more dishes to choose from, you can make them healthy calories at the very least.

Let’s go over some quick tips that will help you lighten your dinner meal.

Swap Sweet Potatoes For Regular

The first way to save calories for your Christmas meal is to exchange sweet potatoes for regular potatoes when making your mashed potatoes and then also use chicken broth rather than butter as you prepare them.

This will slash the fat content as well and help to boost the nutritional value of this side dish.

Prepare Rice Stuffing Outside Of The Turkey

Stuffing is a place where plenty of calories lurk as the oils from the turkey will be absorbed in the stuffing throughout the cooking process.

To avoid this from happening, prepare the stuffing completely outside of the turkey entirely. If you do this, you can keep it as lean as you want it.

The second problem with stuffing is that it’s classically made with bread, which is high in carbs and low in nutrients.

Instead, opt for brown rice stuffing. While it will still be high in carbs, it’s far more nutrient dense and these carbohydrates will digest more slowly in the body as well.

The end result is that you won’t get the blood sugar spike and potential rapid fat gain that comes along with it.

Be sure to add some diced celery and onions to your stuffing to increase the vegetable content as well.

Make Your Own Cranberry Sauce

Cranberry sauce tends to be another calorie laden dish on the Christmas dinner table. When you purchase commercially prepared cranberry sauce you are going to be looking at a very high amount of sugar for sure.

Instead, prepare your own.

Then you can use a natural, calorie form of sugar such as Stevia for added sweetness. You’ll still get the great taste of cranberries without the unhealthy volume of added sugar.

Seek Out Lighter Dessert Recipes

Finally, dessert is the final place you really have to watch as the calories add up quickly. Start seeking out a lower calorie option for your Christmas dessert.

This could be fruit and whipped topping, a lower calorie pumpkin mousse, or some hot cocoa prepared with a sugar free mix.

Get creative and see what you can come up with this Christmas season. If you do, you can enjoy your dinner meal without the guilt that you typically experience.

For more information on healthy holiday eating, check out this article on top diet offenders.