How to Improve your Eating Habits during Festivals

Festivals and celebrations have always been about enjoying delicious meals and mouth-watering sweets. But all of these food items are best eaten in moderation. Thus, it is necessary to take charge, just as how you would pamper yourself with different self-care routines and tons of workouts to stay fit on any other regular day. 

Here are a few easy steps you can incorporate in your festivities to make sure you stay right on track whilst enjoying the occasions :

Step 1- Switch to a healthier option :

In today's times, we are quickly able to make a switch from a full-of-sugar-sweet and a high-calorie meal to a sugar-free, vegan and no-added artificial sweeteners alternative. Moreover, these alternatives are available in various flavours and they taste just the same. 

Off lately, various restaurants and caterers too have started offering healthier options for the diet conscious. Protien bars, flavoured yogurts, dried dates, dark chocolates, nuts and dry fruits, healthy snack bars, fermented foods like yogurt kombucha etc. are few of the many options easily available today.

Switching to such treats is ideal for a guilt-free celebration without any compromise on taste! For some of you, it may not really taste the same at first, but it is certainly a great way to stay in shape without much exercise during this lockdown period.

Step 2- Take half a serving instead of full :

Eating big portions of your favourite dishes will not only make you feel stuffed but you might also have to miss out on a variety of the other dishes, and nobody wants that! Therefore, it's best to have just half a serving or smaller portions of different dishes in order to get a taste of everything that is prepared. This way you can have more than one serving, especially of the dishes you enjoyed the most. 

Reducing the portion size can also work wonders as you can eat in short intervals. This means that you could eat after every three or four hours, and thus take more charge of your diet. 

Pro tip : In the case of sweet dishes, never eat an entire sweet dish by yourself. Rather, share it with a family member or someone at home. 

Step 3- Count your trips to the kitchen :

Each time you step into the kitchen, you know that it is to eat some food, thus your mind has been trained accordingly. But what your mind doesn't realize is the reason why you entered the kitchen in the first place - it doesn't realize the difference between when you are hungry and when you are bored, and so all it thinks about is food. It doesn't realize whether the body needs the food at that time because of hunger or because the mind and body are at rest and thus it is bored and looking for food. 

Therefore here it's the psychology of the mind and body that plays a major role. You have to train your mind and it will act accordingly. Once your mind is trained it will slowly understand the difference, feel guilty, react accordingly and you will stop going to the kitchen unnecessarily. 

Step 4- Eat something from home 

You would surely be wondering why I'm telling you do so when occasions are meant for eating your favourite dishes from your favourite restaurant with your family and friends. The only reason behind this suggestion is so that you can avoid eating excess when you step out since you are already full from the meal you ate at home! 

This way you can take charge of your eating habits, and even for those who don't work out much, following this step will work wonders. 

PS : This doesn't mean you can't eat food from restaurants, but instead it would help you work on your eating habits, and thus towards your fitness goals. 

                       

Step - 5 Maintain a food journal :

Most of us generally maintain a diary regarding tasks of the day, our general thoughts, any other important information. So why not try to log in your meals of the day too?

Writing down all the key aspects of your meal will help you understand what you've eaten throughout the day and how you can improve on that. The days you don’t work out and eat well should be particularly mentioned. This step can also help you to make changes in your workout schedule so that you stay on track with both of these for a fit lifestyle. 

These are a few steps that have helped me over the years with the fitness goals that I set for myself. Please take note that not all of these suggestions may suit your body or lifestyle, so only do what works best for you.

Team SYNC Snippets wishes all its readers a Happy Ganesh Chathurthi. Despite of the lockdown we hope you enjoy this festival to the fullest. Do make sure that you take all the safety precautions mentioned by the government against the virus. 

- Ushma Shah (Team SYNC Snippets)