Healthy Eating Choices - Being Polite Can Make You Fat

How can being polite can help you pack on those extra holiday pounds? It is not something we think about often, but being polite or considerate of other people's feelings can actually help us pack on more pounds than we care to think about. The real question is "How to stop gaining weight?" and still be polite when people are shoving food at you during the holidays.

Being polite does not help you lose weight. Especially during the holidays or at gatherings where there will be lots of food. We all over do it. We make our special dish for everyone to enjoy, then we fill our plates and eat to our hearts content. That's just the way it is during the holidays or at gatherings where food is served.

We make a lot of choices and decisions every day. It is part of life and during the holidays, we have even more choices to make. One of these concerns the dreaded holiday weight gain that we put on so easily, but lose with much difficulty. When there is a lot of delicious food available, how much we eat is entirely our decision. We know that if we eat too much, it can stay on our hips or belly for a very long time,

Holidays are a time when we all tend to eat too much. How many times when you go to a party, family gathering or just out to a smorgasbord, have you said, or heard someone say, "Man, I'm stuffed". But, consider this, eating too much is a choice, just one of the many choices we make every day.



The biggest problems:

1. We make too much. We all have three or four favorite holiday dishes that we know everyone just loves. So we make three or four dishes because, well, we love them and have a burning desire to make them happy. What better way to make them happy than with delicious food, lots of delicious food.

2. We eat too much. When we go to a holiday gathering, we sometimes feel obligated to try a little (or a lot) of everything. Think about how much food most people eat when they go to a buffet. The idea is to get as much as you can for your money and the food is so good anyway. And just look at that dessert bar. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.

3. Most of all, we don't want to hurt the feelings of the person that made their special dish (that's being polite). After all, they spent all that time preparing it, the least we can do is sample it, just to make them feel good about bringing their favorite dish.

What can we do about it?

We know that most people will overeat during holiday gatherings, and there are some simple things that you can try:

1. Find out how many people are going to be at the gathering. Many times, we prepare dishes without considering how many people are going to be there. And sometimes, children eat less than adults.

2. Don't make a lot of food. You don't have to feed an army. If everyone is bringing a dish, then there will be enough food, without any going to waste or anyone overeating.

3. Put smaller portions on you plate and leave the rest of the food for others (that's being polite). After all, how much you eat and how full you want to get is your choice. Make it a good choice and you just might avoid the anxiety that comes when we realize we have put on four or five pounds.

4. Help your guests by serving the food on smaller plates. People will usually eat as much food as they put on their plate. Smaller plates mean more trips to the food, but there will be more time between servings to allow the food to reach the stomach and send that "please, I'm full, no more food" signal to your brain.

How much we eat is a choice we make every day. You can make it easier to keep the holiday pounds off by looking at the choices you make during the holidays and every other day. It is your life, make the best choices you can and enjoy the holidays.



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