The Top 4 Diet Offenders to Avoid During the Holidays

As you gear up for the holiday season, keeping tabs on what you’re putting into your mouth each and every day will be vital to maintaining your body weight.

Many people do tend to gain five to ten pounds during this month and into the first part of the New Year because of all the tasty goodies that surround them.

While you don’t have to go into total deprivation mode to maintain your body weight, you do need to take into account what the largest dietary offenders will be so that you know which foods you should be avoiding at all costs.

Let’s have a look at the main ones to be on the lookout for so that you aren’t consuming far more calories than you intended.

Pecan Pie

The very first dietary offender is pecan pie.  Pecan pie will taste delicious and contain some healthy fats, but it will also pack in a very high dose of calories as well.

Pecan pie is also rich in sugar content so the combination of high sugar and high fat will really do some serious damage for your diet plan.

Instead, opt for pumpkin pie if you must eat pie or better yet, choose a lighter dessert altogether.

Stuffing

Stuffing is another place where many calories like to lurk.  Bread based stuffing is going to be incredibly high in carbs and if it’s prepared inside of the turkey, it’ll also have all the fat absorbed into it from the drippings during the cooking process.

If you’re going to be serving up stuffing, consider preparing a brown rice or quinoa stuffing on its own, adding spices, vegetables, and a little broth to add more flavor and moisture.

This will be a far healthier strategy and won’t have you forgoing stuffing altogether.

Mixed Nuts

Mixed nuts are the next place dietary destruction can take place.  Mixed nuts are high in healthy fats, so will be good in that regard, the problem is that most are salted so stopping after just a handful isn’t something that’s going to be happening.

These are a very calorie dense food and a few handles will easily pack in 800 or more calories.  Over the course of the holiday this will add up and could mean a few extra pounds of body fat gain.

If you’re having nuts, have a few and then move away from the bowl and be sure to down a glass of water to get the salty taste out of your mouth.

Eggnog

Finally, eggnog is the last thing to stay away from.  This one is also trouble as it contains not only sugar and fat, but alcohol as well.  These three things are the most damaging ingredients that you could eat on your diet, so this drink is going to do nothing beneficial for your health status.

If you want eggnog, prepare your own using skim milk, egg whites, and a sweetener.  This will keep the calories in check.

So keep these points in mind as you move through the holiday season and you shouldn’t have nearly as hard of a time maintaining your body weight.