Holiday Eating Versus Healthy Eating

Every year as the holidays start to roll around, we start to see magazines and television begin to offer those same old tips, that are offered every year, on how to stay on your healthy diet with all those holiday treats around. The closer to the holidays we get, the more "everyone and his brother" starts offering those same old tips.

"Don't go to parties hungry." "Don't forget that those special, holiday, beverages have calories in them." (I "love" this one). "Eat celery and carrots instead of those high-calorie, high-fat pieces of pie. Most people I know DO eat celery and carrots. It's just that they eat them before dinner, or for lunch. Not too many people eat them instead of pie. Here's the thing: If you don't want to eat pie don't eat pie. Don't, however, delude yourself into thinking that celery and carrots ever make a dessert substitute for pie. My tip is "skip the pie" if you don't want the calories. It's that simple. No "brilliant" and "original" tips required.)

In fact, here's my idea: Stop all those TV and magazine (and, yes, Internet site) things that offer tips on sticking with your healthy eating habits through any holidays. First (and I don't pretend to know what goes into deciding who will put yet one more of those things on about healthy eating and holiday treats), I suspect it's all about trying to get ratings, sell stuff, fill time, compete with all those other tip-pieces, or something along those lines. Maybe, too, some of those people who come up with the idea to run this kind thing may actually be imagining a nation full of people who are thinking, "Gee. I wish someone would tell me how my children and I can eat healthy in spite of those terrible, sweets-ridden, holidays; like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Eve and Day, and (even if it does come after the official end of "holiday season", let's throw in that evil-of-all-evil/chocolate-infested days, Valentine's Day. In fact, it's not long after that that St. Patrick's Day and it's life-destroying Irish soda bread shows up. Let's forget how closely Easter follows (because whether you celebrate Easter or not, you're probably not all that above being tempted by those chocolate eggs or (the ever popular with everyone but me) marshmallow Peeps.

It happens, too, that Spring is a season of birthday cakes in my life; and - heck - it's just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from those April and May birthdays to Memorial Day barbeques, kids' graduations (from preschool on up), June weddings, and - OMG - the Fourth of July. Now, it happens that in my family several people with July birthdays have passed away, so I don't have to worry about birthdays until August, at which time there is always the ever present threat of birthday cake, chips and dip, and some calorie-loaded meal at a restaurant somewhere. Still, that about wraps up most of the holiday/occasion eating challenges for me (anyway) until Halloween. (Yes, there's Labor Day in there, but - I don't know - do people really eat cakes and stuff on Labor Day? I don't.)

For me, this means that I'm in the clear until Halloween, at which time I don't really have to worry too much about treats when it comes to myself. The main concern is for any "unfortunate" children who may be "victimized" by all that evil Halloween candy. Then again, a lot of kids are like I was when I was a kid: my enjoyment of Halloween was about dressing up and going out and getting the candy. I'd bring my bag back, pick out two or three of the few kinds of candy I even liked; and put it somewhere until my mother decided "it must have worms in it" and threw it out. I did the same thing with all holiday treats. Once, when I left my Easter Basket on the dining room table, believing the adorable Peeps chicken in it was safe (and could keep it forever); but my unknowing, elderly, grandfather went in and bit the adorable Peep's head off before realizing it was marshmallow and throwing it in the trash.. (Of course, my mother yet again mentioned, "I keep telling you. You can't keep candy forever anyway. It gets worms." But, I digress....

My point is this: Not everybody gets out of control when it comes to holiday treats. Some do, of course, and I'll address that a little later. I was a small kid who grew up to be a size 3 junior- petite. (They didn't have Size 0 in those days, or at least not in the stores where I shopped.)   It happens that I am not, as of this writing, a size 3, junior petite; but that it isn't because I ate pie for Thanksgiving in 1994 or ate some leftover Trick-or-Treat candy in (let's see) 2000 through 2009. 

When I eventually had my own family (one son doesn't share my genes; the other two of my children do), my kids were all really, really, slender kids who grew up to be slender people who had great eating habits. At any given time, one son or the other has had the occasional period of a little too much around the middle, but they're also people who know exactly what they need to do to lose it. (I have one son who turned into a wheat-germ kind of person, one who borders on being a vegetarian, and a daughter who is a vegan.) My point for mentioning all this is that the attitudes and opinions I'm about to express here (while - no doubt about it - are mine, and not the opinions of someone putting on a news show, or something like that) haven't harmed me or my children.

Here's how I see it: I don't want any more (NONE) of those rehashed, recycled, tips on how to avoid ruining your diet over any holiday, holiday season, or lifetime! I'm old enough to have grown children. Really - I've seen those healthy-eating-versus-treats tips about ninety times as much I've watched the Wizard of Oz, any Academy Awards show, and any year's Miss America pageant combined (and I don't plan to watch any of them ever again either, by the way).

Here's how I see it too: If the holiday in question is a one-day affair (like Thanksgiving), eat up. There's only so much anyone can eat before he gets so full he wants to die. If you don't eat turkey (I don't), fill your plate with mashed potato and corn, have a couple of rolls, and make up for whatever else you don't eat at dinner by having pie (and anything else you feel like eating before you start to feel sick). Here's why I recommend this: Thanksgiving is only one day! If you're fat it isn't because you binge once a year. If you're on a diet, eating on one day doesn't mean you have to turn every day for the rest of time into a big cheating binge. I don't know about other people, but I've never permanently put on a pound because of a Thanksgiving eating binge. In fact, I'm old enough now that I've had enough of those eating binges that leave a person feeling so disgusting, that I long ago vowed I'd never, ever, do that kind of eating again.

"But," I can imagine you thinking, "Thanksgiving isn't the only holiday or special occasion." No, it isn't. Let's get into some numbers here. There are eleven Federal holidays, not all of which involve goodies. There are (at least in the US) there are (if I'm counting correctly) 16 goody-associated holidays. That includes Labor Day, for those who associate goodies with Labor Day, as well as both Christmas Eve and News Years Eve. Patriots Day is a Massachusetts holiday and doesn't usually involve goodies (or even a day off from trash pick-up). Arbor Day is nice but about trees and seldom involves goodies, as far as I know. So, we are talking about 16 days out of the 365 days in a year. Yes, a few of those days come spaced fairly close together; but, let's be honest, most of us aren't partying our way all the way from November to January 1.

Sure, there are people (a minority, I'm guessing) who party their way through the last part of Fall and beginning of Winter. A whole lot of us spend our weekdays working, our weekends decorating and shopping, and only squeeze in a few get-togethers (at most) before the holiday actually arrives. Some of those folks who party up a storm may find that something along the lines of vodka is the main "evil" of those parties; but I'll acknowledge that SOME people may have to draw a line on what they eat at parties that actually have food and lots of goodies at them.

A whole lot of people, though, pretty much just work their usual work week, come home and do their usual thing at night (or else shop or decorate), and don't have all that many reasons to binge until the actual holiday. Of those 16 days, not all people celebrate all days. Some people ignore Valentine's Day or Easter or St. Patrick's Day. Heck - some people mainly ignore all holidays, and they REALLY don't want to see those tips on holiday eating. "But," you're asking, "What about large families and all those birthdays?" Well, you know what - you don't have to eat the birthday cake. You really can just go to a birthday party and have tea and a few crackers and cheese (or something). So, what about those graduations and weddings? Well, even with the divorce rate being what it is, a lot goody-ridden, June, weddings are a once-in-a-lifetime thing for the people getting married. It's similar with graduations. Besides, as with birthday parties, you don't have to eat the cake (AND, there's really no reason to substitute cake with celery sticks either. I, personally, am a natural, non-cake-eater; so scraping off frosting on that ("just a tiny piece, please") cake makes choking down the little blob of cake that's left easy.)

This brings us back to the point that there are a maximum of 16 goody-associated holidays a year, and that most of them don't involve partying for weeks and months before the actual day arrives.

This is why my holiday eating tip is this: Enjoy yourself, for goodness sake. If you're fat it isn't because of Christmas and News Years. If your child is fat it's not because he ate his Halloween candy or binged on junk at his friend's birthday party. The world is full of people who don't even have a "Sweet Tooth" to begin with, so they naturally limit what goodies they eat. For people who do enjoy sweets, even the most "disgusting" binges aren't likely to result in more than a couple of pounds of extra weight (and if those people manage not to eat those sweets all the rest of the time, they'll stop eating them after the holiday too - and those couple of pounds will come off as easily as they went on). I know there are (apparently) people who gain weight easily; but I think if most of us are honest, we know that if we've gained weight it really took a prolonged, almost abusive, stretch of really bad eating (and drinking).

I suspect that most of those people who say, "If I eat one cookie I'll gain five pounds," are overweight people who are lying about how they got that way. They want others to think that they gained that extra thirty pounds by eating one cookie on Christmas. (Come on.... that's not how gaining weight works. If it works that way for the rare person somewhere, there aren't enough of those people to warrant all those media features on holiday eating tips.)

So I say, "News people, magazine people, Internet people - find something else to fill your programs and pages with. If you can't think of anything to fill them with, fill them with holiday music or pictures or something. Or, throw in some more ads if you have to. The "issue"/"problem" of holiday weight gain and ruined diets is one you've blown way up out of proportion and way beyond reality. People with healthy eating habits often just naturally keep up those eating habits at holiday time. They're out of the habit of eating junk, and some even find it makes them a little sick. As for people who eat junk all the time - Well, eating carrots instead of pie on Thanksgiving isn't going to help them, is it?

The one tip that usually shows up among all those others is this: For people on a weight-loss diet, if it turns out you slip up on the holidays, just go back to your diet after the holiday is over. (Can I say, "Duh" here?) Now, this is a tip I can agree with. Basically, all it would take to offer dieting people a tip on holiday eating would be that one line: "If you slip up just go back on your diet the next day." I don't know... Maybe I over-estimate the maturity and good sense of people, but somehow I think most people already know that if they slip up they should just return to their diet the next day.

In any case, while I will confess to selecting Trick--or-Treat candy that I'll like (in the event I pack up more bags than kids who actually show up), my holiday eating tips follow:

Eat the pie at Thanksgiving. In fact, eat whatever you damned well want. Do the same thing at Christmas and New Years. If you have a honey tell him/her to give you flowers (or CD's or something) for Valentine's Day. If you don't have a honey you don't need to worry about it. Eat carrots at Easter. (That's what the Easter Bunny eats anyway. He'll approve and leave you some jelly beans, Peeps, and Cadbury eggs (and if he does, feel free to eat them, so you won't insult old "E.B.") Don't overeat on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July (particularly since bathing suits, pools, or beaches are often involved).

For Labor Day, eat whatever you eat on any other day (and use the day off from work to sort out the toys your kids have been playing with all summer). And, then there's Halloween. I suppose I should offer the tip about handing out healthy snacks to kids and not buying all those bags of candy so evil it surpasses all the worst and most evil Halloween monster and witches who prowl the neighborhoods on Halloween. I suppose I could tell you how I've been known to make cute pumpkin-face "creatures" out of fruit cups, and adorable scarecrows out of celery sticks and angel-hair pasta. I'm not going to, though, because holidays are for things like Peeps and candy corn and chocolate bunnies. More importantly, they're suppose to be a time when we do things that are special and different - not things that assure we won't deviate from our usual habits and routines. Celery sticks are for Tuesdays and Saturdays (and Mondays and Sundays and whatever other days there are). Holidays are for goodies (and that's not such a bad thing).

My tip for you (and maybe it's not a good tip at all) is to disregard all those people who earn their living making problems out of things that aren't big problems, scaring people into thinking if they eat pie on Thanksgiving the world will end, and exploiting that latest bandwagon to come down the media pike.

Now, if you'll excuse me. It's Saturday morning, and it isn't a holiday. I think I'll go get my apple and tea and take a look at the menu from the caterer who will be catering my daughter's engagement bash, which will be held a week before Thanksgiving . (I hope this doesn't mean I don't get to eat my annual slice of pumpkin pie this year.....).