Holiday binging without pigging out

If Christmas comes, can food – and all those holiday goodies – be far behind? Go ahead, eat, drink and be merry. But be wary as well, lest you end up looking like an overstuffed Santa Claus. Ho, ho, horrors! Here are tips on binging without pigging out in this Q & A with Healthy Options, headed by managing director Romeo Sia:

There’s food everywhere, there are three or more parties every week. So how do I avoid gaining weight?

Think power foods this holiday season and all year through. Power foods give you energy and strength. Eating them results in increased vitality, which enables you to live life more fully. Power foods fight fatigue and boost immunity, helping to keep you fit and healthy.

While there’s a place in our diet for all the foods that we enjoy, some are undeniably richer than others in beneficial and essential nutrients – vitamins, minerals and naturally occurring phytochemicals. By eating more of these foods and ensuring you have the correct proportion of different foods in your diet, you will have greater energy, greater endurance and greater stamina, enjoying more power from the foods you eat.

There are four main food groups, which provide essential vitamins, minerals and other components for optimum health and vitality. These are:

1) Starchy carbohydrate foods: Eat 14-16 portions a day. An athlete might need 14 portions a day while a sedentary woman would need only 5-6 portions.

2) Vegetables and fruits: Take at least five portions of vegetables and fruits per day – of course, the more the better. Choose a wide variety of colors – orange, yellow, red and green.

3) Dairy foods: Eat 2-3 portions of lower-fat versions a day. Switching to low-fat milk, yogurt, cheese and desserts will reduce fat in your diet, especially saturated fat. But while everyone over age five would benefit from lower-fat versions, infants and children up to age two need full-fat versions.

4) Meat, fish and vegetarian protein alternatives: Eat 2-4 portions a day. Moderate amounts of fish, poultry, lean meat and vegetarian alternatives are needed for protein for growth and repair. Choose lean meat; avoid sausages, pate and meat pastes, pies, burgers, frankfurters, luncheon meat, salami.

Most of us are too stressed around the holidays to keep up with healthy eating. How do I eat and drink in moderation?

Moderation is definitely a good dietary principle. It means:

• Eating a medium amount – not too much, not too little.

• Not getting carried away trying to do the right thing. Fiber is good but it doesn’t mean that eating 10 oat bran muffins a day is a good idea.

• Avoiding fads and quick dietary fixes.

• Beginning to change your eating habits at a reasonable pace.

Choose a diet moderate in sugars, salt and sodium. Although sugars provide energy, they contribute little else to the diet.

Drink in moderation. The guidelines define moderate drinking as one drink per day for a woman and two drinks per day for a man. Like sugar, distilled alcohol provides calories or energy, with no food value. Beer, wine and cider provide a small amount of nutrients.

How do you define health food?

There is no legal definition of the term health food. But most people would agree that health foods are foods that provide optimum nutrition or enhance the health of those who consume them. Just as the quality of fuel influences the performance and longevity of a car, the quality of foods you take influences the life and health of your body.

The following terms describe the types of foods found at Healthy Options:

• Whole foods are foods found in as close to their whole and natural state as possible. Generally, they have been minimally processed and have not had nutrients and fiber removed.

• Natural foods are foods obtained from nature and do not have synthetic ingredients.

• Organic foods are foods that qualify to meet the strict growing standards of the state where they are produced. They’re the most expensive of the three types of health foods.

Finally, take this tidbit of advice: Balance the foods you eat with physical activity. If you consume more calories than your body uses in its normal operation, you store the extra calories as body fat which is the cause of weight gain. If you spend more energy than you consume, you burn your stored fat and lose weight.

Happy – and healthy – eating to one and all!