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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – What is seasonal eating? It’s the type of eating we’re more likely to do during a specific season. Different seasons of the year usually bring different situations with their own eating triggers. For instance, summer usually brings more vacations, barbeques and drinking, while the holiday season brings lots of parties and gift baskets of food hanging around. This week, let’s discuss the fall season and its eating triggers because I do believe that weight management is difficult with our environment and change in seasons playing a role.
When I think of fall, I think of back to school, back to work, falling leaves, Halloween and Thanksgiving (we’ll discuss this special holiday in another tip). It also may mean football, beers, and more time indoors in general. In some ways I also think of fall as the time to get back down to business after summer fun.
Any of these ring true?
Are we back to work after our summer vacations? This might actually help us if we use this time to establish a routine to help us get back to regular healthy eating habits. If we plan a few specific goals, and map out a few specific strategies, then we’re not at the mercy of last minute choices. For example, we might plan a food shopping day, or make a list of possible meal and snack choices for both home and office. Do we work late often? Let’s map out a plan for the snacks we can bring to the office, so we don’t go home starving.
Are we back to school? Whether we’re college bound, or attending school after work, eating can serve as a distraction from studying (I find that eating can serve as a break during work too!). Of course, eating can serve as a distraction and a break at work too! Let’s keep low calorie, high nutrient dense snacks on hand. Hot air popcorn, yogurt, fresh fruit, cereal, and soups are just a few foods that make great snacks if we choose wisely (let’s read labels!). Let’s also consider other options if we need a break such as a ten minute walk, quick phone call to a friend, or of course a 20- minute jog to clear our head! The idea here is to not use food as a detraction, or a break.
Will we be watching lots of sports on TV? Whether we’re watching sports on TV or all the new fall shows, the fall and winter seasons do bring most of us indoors more. Once again we can avoid putting on seasonal weight by planning our snacks in advance. Making a few low calorie choices can make the difference in keeping off an extra 5 pounds before we even hit the holiday season. Let’s choose light beer instead of regular, popcorn instead of potato chips, and lean foods such as grilled chicken fingers instead of buffalo wings, just to name a few.
Do we have lots of goodies at home for after school treats? While we do need snacks for our children, we can make some of our choices for our children and ourselves, healthy low calorie fruits and vegetable snacks, with the higher fat, high calorie snacks as the less frequent treats. And let’s be choosy about the high calorie snacks. Ice-cream for instance, provides nutrients such as calcium coupled with the fat. Can we say the same about most candy?
Are we ordering in or bringing in our food several times per week? Since the fall may mean back to work, back to school, and hectic schedules, we may eat more convenience food. If we can’t change this, perhaps we can change how we eat by ordering grilled instead of fried, steamed or poached instead of sautéed, and by asking for all sauces and dressings on the side!
Fall is also a great time to renew ourselves with seasonal fresh produce choices. We can shop the markets for winter greens and other veggies such as peppers, artichokes, peas, tomatoes, and late summer/fall fruits such as apples and pears, I just love baking my apple and topping it with frozen yogurt or low fat ice-cream. We can use the cooler weather to enjoy some of the healthiest nutrient -dense filling foods around, such as oatmeal for breakfast, hearty bean soups for lunch, vegetable stews for dinner .
While there is no such thing as perfect eating (unless we go live at a diet camp), we can recognize how each season’s environment affects our choices, and then make a few helpful adjustments. The first step is to recognize how the season affects our every day life, and the next step is for us to make a plan to adjust or change what may hinder our weight management efforts. Losing and maintaining weight takes work (it does unfortunately for most of us) which requires our mental energy. But it’s for our health, so isn’t it worth it?
Here’s to a great fall season!
June M Lay M.S.
June Fit
Here’s a link to “A safe and healthy tailgate” from the American Dietetic Association http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/nutrition_18174_ENU_HTML.htm for football season.
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June is Lifestyle Columnist at www.healthnewsdigest.com/
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