Holidays and "Cheating"

Yesterday we celebrated the Forth of July. My wife and I went to a friends house for a cook-out.

A question came to my head as we drove to the house... "Will I 'cheat'?". Now, what do yo think happened??? I "cheated".Being that our culture surrounds celebration with food I could not help but enjoy myself and partake in an amazing grilled meal. I had a burger, a hot dog, a cookie, baked beans, egg salad... and jello shot :). Almost every single thing I ate in that meal was not something I normally choose to eat, but I did it anyway.

The above brings me to the topic of the post: What does a person who is taking back their health do at a Celebration or Holiday that involves food? To answer that question you must look within yourself and make that choice for your own. I chose to partake in the awesome meal above because I know that ONE meal is most likely not going to kill me, and even if I am eating wrong foods I know I will not gorge myself with food. Now, though a large meal usually is harmless it does have amazing biological effects. These effects range from something a simple as feeling uncomfortable all to a heart attack! Here is link about what the body goes through when eating a very large meal:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/health/nutrition/20well.html

When making the choice to feast keep these tips in mind:

1. If the food is in buffet style then ask the host or restaurant for a smaller plate. When you have smaller plan you will automatically eat less.
2. Don't ask or go for seconds - if you want to try everything then get very small portions of each.
3. One of the worst things you can do is to NOT eat the day of the event. Eat a small and fiber filled meal before you leave your house.
4. When you are comfortably full - STOP!
5. To avoid never being asked to join a social function again - don't tell the host that you can't eat their food because it's not healthy ... Just ENJOY!

One last thing that we often don't consider when it comes to health and especially food... garbage in equals garbage out!