Healthy Eating Tips for the Holidays

Optimize Your Meal Order to Reduce Weight Gain

During the holidays, we tend to eat a lot of oily and high-calorie foods. If you eat whatever you see, you can’t avoid gaining weight. However, if you set a meal order and eat it in order, you can reduce your worries about dieting after the holidays.

Eat Low-Calorie, High-Satiating Vegetable Side Dishes First

First, chopsticks should go to low-calorie, high-fiber foods such as vegetable salad, napa cabbage kimchi, and wild vegetables. These foods are very filling and help prevent overeating. In addition, dietary fiber delays the absorption of carbohydrates in the gastrointestinal tract, thereby suppressing blood sugar levels.

Next, eat protein-rich foods such as LA galbi-gui and pollack pancake. Protein foods also increase satiety and help reduce carbohydrate intake. Lastly, eat carbohydrate foods such as rice and songpyeon. Carbohydrates that are not used by the body are stored as fat, so if you are concerned about weight gain, it is better to eat less.

Boil or Steam Rather Than Fry or Stir-Fry

Even when preparing holiday food, you can reduce calories with a little care. When making meat, remove fat and skin, or use lean meat such as sirloin and tenderloin. When frying, cover with as little flour as possible to prevent too much oil from being absorbed.

It is better to cook it by boiling, steaming, grilling, or stewing rather than frying or stir-frying. If you must fry it, it is better to cook it over high heat for a short time, and using an air fryer is also a way to reduce oil use.

Eat Slowly and Take a Brisk Walk After Your Meal

If you take enough time for meals, you can reduce the amount of food you eat. Have a pleasant conversation with family you haven’t seen in a long time and chew your food more than 30 times per bite. Chewing for a long time increases saliva secretion, which helps digestion, and the act of chewing itself makes you feel full. In particular, after about 30 minutes of starting a meal, the satiety center is stimulated and you feel ‘full’, so it is good to enjoy your meal slowly for at least 30 minutes.

After a meal, instead of sitting or lying down, try taking a light walk with your family. If you don’t exercise after a meal, nutrients are not used as energy sources and are easily converted to fat. Therefore, it is recommended to walk for 15 to 20 minutes, and even just this amount of movement can significantly reduce the amount of glucose that is converted to fat.