Posts Tagged holiday tips
Big Weekends Don’t Have to Mean Big Weight Gain….
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on July 2nd, 2010
I can’t believe it the 4th of July weekend already! The timing of this holiday couldn’t be better for me. I have now been home for a week from The Biggest Loser Resort and it has been great. One of the lessons that I learned was the importance of planning ahead. In the past, our 4th of July camping trip was a guaranteed 15 lb weight gain weekend.
What’s going to make this one different? I have come to realize that having a good time doesn’t have to revolve around consuming mass calories. I have a plan. Today I am going to share my plan with you in hopes that is will help you have an enjoyable and successful holiday.
For me camping has been a weekend of snacking aimlessly on Chex mix cheese snacks, eating a burger or hotdog whenever the urge hit and drinking cases of pop. Yes pop, I know for some of you your choice of beverage may be different.
It may sound like a bummer, but this year we actually planned a menu. Last year we went to the store and bought whatever sounded like we might want to eat. We had a ton of food and of course we couldn’t let it go to waste so I tried my hardest to eat everything. Waste not want not right?
I have discovered that the coolers that we have that work so well at keeping our junk food cold also work well for fresh healthy foods. We have chicken, steak, stuff for salads and will be able to eat the same way we eat at home. We are bringing our almond milk and cereal for breakfast, we will omelets one morning as well. For lunch we got things to make turkey sandwiches.
Suzy and I talked about how and whn we would do our workouts and specifically what those workouts would be. I am confident that this weekend will be one of the best we have had as a family. We intend to stay active with our little boys and take them hiking and swimming in the lake as often as they can handle. My goal is to have the boys completely exhausted when it come time for them to go to bed.
Lets make this weekend an active one. Regardless of where you live there will be tons of activities to stay active. Maybe this is the year you hit a July 4th fun run or start an annual whiffle ball tournament. You might be surprised at how willing people are to join you in doing active things if you just mention it.
If you know you are going to be going to an event that is focused on food and imbibing, get your workout in ahead of time. One last thing, make sure and revisit your health goals this weekend before heading out and ask yourself if you are doing what you need to to reach them. Holidays are not a free pass. Take some time this weekend for yourself and do the things that you know are going to keep you moving forward.
This weekend doesn’t have to be one of weight gain and overeating. Make it a great time and enjoy.
See you on Monday
Let’s Have a Plan for Thanksgiving Day
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on November 25th, 2009
It’s heeere…. A day that strikes fear in many trying to stick to a nutrition plan. Thanksgiving. I want to share what my day is going to be like tomorrow and why I am not worried about whether or not I will be able to “make it through” one of the most notorious days for over eating.
As I said yesterday, Thanksgiving use to be a day for me to consume mass amounts of delicious foods and get rip roaring drunk while watching a crappy team (Detroit Lions) lose another Thanksgiving day game. Things have changed a lot for me, at least some things. I don’t eat enough food to induce a food coma and I don’t get rip roaring drunk, but the Lions are still a crappy team.
Here is what my day is going to be like tomorrow. If you choose to implement some of these things you can save yourself the emotional distress of having blown right past your alloted calorie count for the day.
I am lucky in that my gym is open in the morning. Many gyms are open until around noon. I will get up and head to the gym where I will partake in a spin class. After class I will sit in the sauna and do some stretching. I love the sauna because I get a good sweat and it really helps my tight old muscles relax.
When I get home I’ll help Suzy clean up the house and then I’m off to cut and split some wood. Chopping wood is an amazing core workout. Not only will I get a workout, but I’ll save money on heating costs by using our wood stove.
We will eat around 2 pm. On the menu at the Hoover house, Turkey (not deep fried), mashed potatoes using red potatoes and prepared with skim milk and chicken broth, a green salad, fresh green beans that are steamed, sweet potatoes without all the candy on top (gasp), and a couple deserts. Suzy’s low cal pumpkin pie pudding and mini pecan pies (the size of a Reece’s peanut butter cup) with fat free cool whip.
We always start our meals off with the salad. It helps us fill up on good stuff and curbs the urge to over eat on everything else. Here is where it gets tricky and where many of us fall apart. After we are done eating we will put all of the food away so it’s not setting out to tempt us the rest of the day. Maybe the most important thing that we do is package up any left over desert and send it home with whoever wants it.
As we are cleaning we chat with family and enjoy their company. When everything is put away we sit around for a while and then we go for a walk. We have found that we can talk just as well and maybe even more while out for a walk than we can sitting in front of the tv.
Yes, we do eat left overs. Since we know how everything was prepared we can confidently enjoy leftovers for the next 3 days just like everyone else.
That is my plan for tomorrow. In order to be successful with your nutrion you need to have one too. Maybe this is the year that you start new healthy traditions. Maybe this is the year that your family sees you as a role model and decides they want to get healthy themselves. Maybe this is the year that you don’t just survive the hloidays but thrive!
Enjoy the day and remeber that it isn’t necessarily about food and overindulgence but a time to give thanks and enjoy the company of those that mean the most to you.
Can a Healthy Thanksgiving Still Taste Good?
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on November 25th, 2009
So here we are, a couple days from Turkey Day. Every year we are bombarded with ideas of how to make the holidays healthier. Every year many of us say to ourselves, maybe next year I’ll give it a try.
Last year Suzy and I decided that we would begin hosting Thanksgiving at our house. The reason was two-fold. First, we had just had our second child and it would be easier to stay at home. Secondly, we would be able to prepare the food and have some control over what was served.
I grew up on buffet style holidays. Everyone brought a dish and I ate until I could eat no more. The spread of food at my Grandma’s house would put a Vegas buffet to shame and all of my aunts can cook some delicious food. Unfortunately, I wanted to make sure I got a good amount of everything which meant eating to excess.
Suzy and I decided that we wanted to focus more on the meaning of the day rather than focusing on food. When we decided to start having dinner at our house we talked about how we can have a healthy meal without having our guests feel like they are being deprived or punished because we are working on ourselves.
The interesting thing about Thanksgiving is that many of the common staples of the meal are pretty healthy. Somewhere along the way we decided that those staples needed some added ingredients to make them taste better.
Let’s take turkey for example. Turkey is a healthy lean meat but for some reason the good old fashion way of baking it or roasting it for hours just wasn’t that appealing anymore. What did we do about that? Deep fried turkey! Mashed potatoes aren’t that bad in the big scheme of things when prepared sensibly but now people “add some flavor” by adding extra butter, cream, even sour cream. We take yams or sweet potatoes and cover them in a layer of marshmallows and butter and brown sugar, but hey they’re still healthy because there are yams under there. Right?
I could go on and on. Instead, I want to share what we do at our house. For starters, Suzy roasts the turkey and uses several herbs such as sage, rosemary, and time. She puts carrots, celery, and onions on the bottom of the pan and puts the bird on top of it. After she adds some water, a little salt and some pepper, she has made a nice little broth to baste the bird in. I can say from tasting it, the turkey tastes great and she doesn’t even rub it down with butter or stuff it under the skin which seems to be a poular method these days. TURKEY TIP: Try using natural ingredients to enhance the flavor of your turkey!
For mashed potatoes Suzy uses red potatoes and adds skim milk. Instead of butter she adds some chicken stock instead of butter. Once again, as a veteran mashed potato eater, I have no complaints with her healthier version.
Alright alright, yes we do still have some desert! Believe it or not, we have actually found a way to have healthier options at desert as well. My favorite holiday desert is pecan pie. Not just pecan pie, but pecan pie with good old fasioned real whipped cream and not just a tablespoon. I want so much whipped cream you can’t even tell there is pie underneath!
Unfortunately, I can’t do that in good conscience anymore but I still want my pecan pie. Suzy came up with a great idea. She bought those little tiny cupcake tins and made bite size pecan pies. So to get my pecan pie fix I got my little “mini pie” with a little bit of fat free cool whip. Having the little portion allowed me to have a taste and Suzy only prepared enough for us all to have ONE. I was able to stay in control.
Possibly my favorite desert is something that Suzy started making to take to get togethers around the holidays so that we could have something to eat without worrying about calorie counts. I call it pumpkin pie pudding. It consists of 2 pkgs of fat free/sugar free pudding prepared as directed on the box. Add half a can of prepared pumpkin, add cinnamon and pumpkin pie seasoning to taste. Put in the fridge until it sets and then add one container of fat free cool whip and mix right before serving. This is a delicious creamy dessert that can take the place of some of the heavier more calorie filled dishes that we often like to have at Thanksgiving.
These are a couple of the things that we do at our home. Tomorrow I am going to give you some ideas on how to keep active over the next couple of days. See you then!
Here come the Holidays!
Posted by Matt Hoover in General on November 23rd, 2009
I can’t beleive it’s Thanksgiving already. Thanksgiving seems to be the kick-off for the holidays. For many the word holidays conjures up the thoughts of multiple parties, time with friends and family, or a time to be a little lax on their exercise. After all, New Years will be here soon and you can set the same resolution you have the last however many years, to get healthier and fitter.
Here is the thing. For many the holidays are really only 2 days, Thanksgiving and Christmas, yet many of us turn December into a month long celebration. We take the holiDAYs and turn it into holiWEEKs. And by the end of the month many have packed on an the pounds. Stats show that average gain in the month of December is 3-7 pounds.
Why do some people pack on the pounds while others go through the holidays unscathed? It really is pretty simple. It comes down to planning and common sense. Fit people tend to grasp the idea that the holidays are a time to spend with your family and celebrate your beliefs, not take a whole month off from working out and over-indulging.
Think about how many parties that you will attend over the next month, not even including Thanksgiving and Christmas. My guess is that most of us will attend at least two many of us anywhere from 4-6. Attending that many get togethers leads to ample opportunities to over do it.
I am not saying don’t leave the house this festive season, I am saying use your head. Plan Ahead! My gym is open on Thanksgiving morning. Guess where I will be before I sit down to enjoy some turkey? The gym!
By getting a workout in I feel more in control at the table. I know that this is simply another meal and that the real joy of the day comes from spending it with people you care about. Last year Suzy and I began hosting Thanksgiving at our house. We had a blast but more importantly, we knew how everything was prepared and made dishes that we could enjoy and that others would enjoy as well. No one complained about having a meal prepared in a healthier way and it tasted great despite missing pounds of butter.
Tomorrow I will have Suzy join me and we are going to share some ideas about how you can make Thanksgiving enjoyable while still making progress toward your healthy lifestyle. The rest of this month I will be writing about not just surviving the holidays but thriving during this month and how we are going to all get a jumpstart on those who are waiting for the new year to begin their changes.
This is an exciting time of the year for many reasons, lets get excited about being fit too!
