Stay healthy over the festive season with these tips

From year-end functions to Christmas lunches and New Year braais, it’s easy to do the ‘over’s’: overeat, overdrink, oversleep, overspend and overthink.

Braai or cook for the family? Tweak your meals to make them healthier

The SA festive season might as well be braai season because we need no excuse to get together and light a fire. By making minor adjustments to your recipes, you could serve up (and eat) healthier, more nutritional meals.

Get your game on with pre-event planning

With all the functions over the holidays, go prepared:

• Have a healthy snack beforehand so you don’t go to the event hungry;

• To not be tempted to eat the entire time, stand away from the food table;

• Watch portion sizes; and

• Make it about socialising rather than food.

The size-contrast illusion: Use smaller plates and tall, narrow glasses

Visual cues can prevent overeating because people generally use their eyes to count calories. These visual cues can lead you to under or overestimate how much you ate.

Research has shown that people consistently underestimate and overconsume the amount of liquid they pour into short, wide drinking glasses compared to tall, narrow glasses holding the same volume.

Similarly, a size-contrast illusion could lead a person to underestimate and overconsume the amount of food on a large plate or overestimate and underconsume the amount on a small plate.

Hydrate

Water is the perfect zero-calorie drink. It lubricates the joints, maintains healthy skin, is necessary for proper digestion and helps restore fluids lost through metabolism.

If you’re not used to drinking water throughout the day, infuse it with fresh fruit, vegetables or herbs, such as lemon, mint, berries and cucumber. Other low-calorie options include plain coffee and tea and sparkling and flavoured waters.

Don’t drink your calories

Soft drinks, fruit, sports and energy drinks, sweetened waters and sweetened coffee and tea have calories but little nutritional value.

Freshly squeezed fruit juices and smoothies, on the other hand, have nutritional value but are high in calories because of the natural sugars.

If you can’t forgo your drinks, try diluting it with water to wean yourself off the sugar. Alcohol and unsweetened caffeinated drinks should be drunk in moderation.

Practise mindful eating

Mindful eating refers to being aware of your physical and emotional sensations when you eat. It has helped people gain awareness of their bodies, be more in tune with their hunger and satiety, recognise external cues (sight and smell of food) to eat and reduce food cravings and factors associated with problematic eating.

Some points to get you started on mindful eating practices:

• Take a deep breath before eating;

• Acknowledge your hunger levels, emotions, thoughts and the eating environment with acceptance and non-judgment;

• Eat slowly;

• Eat without distractions, so put away your screens and switch off the TV; and

• Be cognisant of the taste and texture of what you eat and drink.

Get moving

South Africans are spoilt for choice when it comes to outdoor activities, and with long, warm summer days, we have all the more reason to get active.

• Go for a walk directly after a meal. Research has shown that walking just after a meal is more effective for weight loss than waiting one hour after eating before walking.

• Track your steps. While your target number of steps depends on your goal, tracking your steps and making consistent incremental increases is a great motivator to keep exercising.

• Want to catch up with friends? Instead of a sit-down lunch date, go dancing, explore a new hiking trail or enjoy a swim together.

• Having a family function? Incorporate some games or movements into the day’s activities.

• Your hotel room is tiny? Many exercise routines do not require space or equipment.

Touch the Earth

Earthing or grounding refers to getting into contact with the Earth’s surface so that energy is transferred from the ground into the body.

This is done by walking barefoot in nature. There is evidence that supports the idea that the Earth’s electrons induce physiological changes, including reduced pain, better sleep, and a shift from the sympathetic (the fight and flight response) to parasympathetic (rest and digest response) tone in the autonomic nervous system and a blood-thinning effect.

Bask in vitamin D

Emerging research supports the possible role of vitamin D against cancer, heart disease, fractures and falls, autoimmune diseases, influenza, Type-2 diabetes and depression, so spend some time in the sun or supplement to ensure you get enough of this sunshine vitamin.

Stick to your sleep schedule

While it might be difficult to always have an early night with friends or family visiting, try to stick to your schedule as much as possible.

• Source: My Dynamics powered by Pharma Dynamics