Don’t eat the whole SuperBOWL!

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week – Don’t eat the whole SuperBOWL!

Sunday is the Superbowl, which involves football, fantastic commercials, socializing with friends, and lots of food and drinks. The Superbowl has never been equated with healthy eating. Here are some suggestions for living the SWEET Life at a Superbowl party:

If you are giving the party, serve healthier versions of Superbowl classics:

Instead of:	Serve:
A variety of chips	veggies, popcorn and pita chips
Dip	Hummus
cream cheese	cheese or cottage cheese
fried egg rolls	tortilla roll-ups
Hot wings	grilled chicken breast skewers
Salami sandwiches	turkey sandwiches
Beef chili	turkey or vegetarian chili
sausages	chicken drumsticks
pre-made sandwiches	sandwich bar
pulled pork in barbeque sauce	roast pork
potato salad	green salad
Macaroni salad with a mayonnaise-based sauce	Pasta salad with Italian dressing
Waldorf salad or canned fruit cocktail in syrup	Fresh fruit salad

If you are going to a party:

· BYOF: Bring any of the healthy food choices above, so you know there will be at least one healthy thing to eat.

· CHOOSE which foods you will eat and not eat, such as:

· veggies and dip, but not chips and dip

· chili, but not sausages

· mini quiches, but not hot wings

· one of any of the desserts, but only one, etc.

In either case:

· Eat a healthy breakfast & lunch that day; then only eat at halftime (dinner).

· Serve a portion onto a plate or cup, rather than constantly dipping your hand into the bowl.

· After serving your portion, walk away from the food table, sit down and eat. Don’t sit near the bowls of snacks.

· Don’t eat bad-tasting food! Leave it on the plate. Don’t be a garbage disposer!

· Remember the “socializing with friends” aspect of the game and get too busy talking to eat.

· Drink water between each alcoholic drink.

· Don't let your friends drive home drunk.

I read recently that every minute is a chance to change and improve yourself, so if you find yourself at halftime having eaten a lot of junk food, it’s time to stop yourself and decide you’ve eaten enough for the whole game.

Look for another topic next week, and keep living the SWEET Life!

Suzanne

Conquering Holiday Feasts & Goodies

Appraising Your Success
The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!

Topic of the week -- Conquering Holiday Feasts & Goodies
The two months between Halloween and New Year’s Day are filled with special foods and sweets. As such, you need to make a plan for how you are going to face all those temptations. Don’t deprive yourself of these special holiday indulgences, but go in with a plan.

One holiday control plan is to enjoy each holiday, but to maintain your regular healthy eating plan, along with the other elements of the SWEET Life, all the other days in between holidays. That makes about four days of being gluttonous, depending on which holidays you celebrate, rather than 60 days! In the scope of 60 days, those four days will be insignificant.

Some “at the moment” ideas for holiday party control are the following:
· Don’t starve yourself all day to “save up” calories. You’ll be so hungry by the time you eat that you’ll eat more than you would have if you’d eaten a regular meal a few hours beforehand.
· Serve or offer to bring “relishes” as an appetizer. Carrot, celery, and cucumber sticks; cherry tomatoes, radishes, bell pepper strips, etc. with hummus for dipping are a healthy way to stave off those hunger pangs while waiting for people to gather and the meal to begin.
· “Select,” don’t “select all,” at the buffet. Make yourself a meal of protein, grains and vegetables, rather than a little bit of everything. Think of a buffet like a deli counter: as much as everything looks good, you only choose a few things to make your meal.
· Only serve yourself 2-3 bites of each food. That way, if you don’t like something, you can leave the rest without wasting a lot of food. It also allows you to try more foods, if you’re so inclined.
· Thanksgiving is typically weak in vegetables, so eat all you can.
· Don’t waste stomach space and calories on bad food. If you have kids, you know that food they don’t like immediately comes back out. As adults, we are polite enough to swallow that bite, but don’t go thinking the second bite will somehow taste better.
· Don’t “eat all you can” (unless it’s veggies).

What about all those sweets people give you when they drop by? Pay them forward: Serve them to guests who drop by or take them to people’s houses that you visit. Just because people give them to you doesn’t mean that you, personally, have to eat them all!

Have a SWEET week!

Suzanne