The holidays can be a wonderful time spent sharing your love and joy with family and friends! ...They also can be a time of over-indulging and self-sabotage if you aren't being mindful. They can be stressful, exhausting, and challenging for a health conscious lifestyle. I want to provide you with some techniques to keep a healthy mindset to make good choices during the holiday hype! Lets stay on track towards preparing for a healthy and happy ski season! 
1. Eat Breakfast
Jumpstart your metabolism with a properly portioned, nutrient dense, and protein packed breakfast. I suggest an egg scramble topped with avocado, or greek yogurt with fruit topped with nuts and seeds of your choice. You need the healthy energy to kick off the busy day. Avoid pastries, coffee cakes, highly processed "food like" items, or sugary cereals. Start the day off right. If you skip breakfast, your energy will be low, leaving you feeling sluggish, then you will be more prone to over-eating later in the day. So listen up and eat breakfast.
2. Morning workout
Getting a morning workout is a great way to further boost your metabolism. It's pretty simple, working out in the morning assures that you get your workout in. Take a fitness class, lift weights, go for a run, hike, or participate in a friendly competition like a tennis match or a "Turkey Bowl" football game. Anything to get your body moving and heart pumping will do! Check out this workout with yours truly.
3. Healthy Dish
Bring a healthy dish to your next holiday potluck gathering or modify a favorite dish with healthy substitutions. Bringing a healthy, "slim style" dish, you know you have something "safe" to put on your plate and in your mouth that isn't soaked in sugar, baked in butter, or covered in extra calories. You will be setting a good example for your friends/family members too. There are tons of recipe blogs, cookbooks, and websites that provide healthy options to choose from. One of my favorite places for recipes is Pinterest, where I found a fantastic Sweet Potato crockpot recipe for a Friendsgiving.
4. Drink Water
Hydrate on high-quality, zero calorie, no sugar added, H2O! Keep a refillable water bottle with you at all times, and keep filling up on water. Enjoy your wine and holiday drinks if you desire, but drink water in between beverages. This will help you hydrate, digest, and leave you less likely to have a hangover the next day. So drink water, lots of it.
5. Eat Your Colors!
This may be one of the most overlooked, but easiest thing you can do to assure that you're providing your body and soul with a well-balanced grub during the holidays. And sorry, green jell-o doesn't count as a color, grab the green beans instead. The Calorie Control Council estimated a Holiday meal averaging around 4,500 calories. Keep in mind that 3,500 calories equals 1 pound. By filling at least half of your plate with high fiber fruits and vegetables, your plate could rank a little lower on the calorie count.
6. Dessert When it comes to dessert, skip the store bought cookies or highly processed pie. Choose something special that you know you'll only have once a year around the holidays. Something like your aunt's homemade apple pie, or your mom's layered jell-o salad she spent hours on. Don't go crazy, but small portions of these will be worth the splurge!
7. Eat Half
Size obviously matters, so when getting in the feast line, tell yourself to "be picky." I have experienced that a dinner plate can get filled up very quickly, even if you get the tiniest scoop of everything. Be smart and cover at least half of your plate with colorful vegetable dishes that tend to have higher nutrient content. As for the rest of your plate, turkey is a good source of lean protein, so gobble down a portion the size of your palm. Mashed potatoes and gravy could be disguising unhealthy fat (saturated and trans) with cream and butter, much more than a clean diet desires. Go for the sweet potatoes but skip the marshmallow topping! Try to take small bites and eat slow. Stop after eating half of what you have served yourself and take a break by going for a walk around the room to socialize. This will allow your stomach stretch receptors to catch up on sending signals to your brain to let you know when you are full. If you think you could use more food, return to your plate and enjoy what you have left. Returning back to your half full plate is much better than getting seconds of another full plate! Stay in tune with your body. Avoid over-eating and save left-overs for another meal.
8. Games & Entertainment
When there is an abundance of food around, it is easy to keep grazing mindlessly. If you know you are that type of person to be a bottomless pit around the holidays, a good way to avoid this is to stay engaged in entertainment. Playing board games, cards, chasing kids, or helping clean up is a helpful way to keep yourself positively occupied.
There you have it, my 8 Health Conscious Holiday tips to stay on track with a Fit mind for a Fit body! I'm ready and waiting for opening day of ski season and I hope you are too! Enjoy the holidays!
And as a bonus, check out this awesome leftover turkey sandwich creation.
~XOXO, Bring on the SNOW!
