Be festive (and stay healthy) this holiday season

Article

December 24, 2020

Be festive (and stay healthy) this holiday season

While we look forward to the new year ahead, it’s important that we take care of our health now, by strengthening our antioxidant and immune defenses and renewing our commitment to living a healthful lifestyle.

Showcase your Nutritarian cooking skills

Challenge: My traditional holiday favoritesare full of white flour, oil, sugar, and salt. Help!

Committing to staying on your health-promoting diet throughout the holidays is the perfect opportunity to revamp your menu. And what a great way to start some new – healthful – holiday traditions! You can find some amazing Nutritarian recipes on my website – for appetizers, main dishes, sides, dressings, desserts and more. Almost every traditional holiday food has a healthful counterpart that is just as enjoyable.

Action Item: Missing the taste of Aunt Mary’s green bean casserole? Replace it with Nutty Green Bean Casserole and enjoy all the flavor (and added nutrients) without all the salt and oil in the original. Replace the traditional apple pie with Classic Apple Pie (recipe is free for members) and you’ll enjoy the cinnamon-apple flavors you love without all the white flour, butter and sugar in the original. If you’re in charge of the cooking, you can treat your crew to a beautiful, healthy, and tasty plant-based spread.

Recipe collection: Christmas Celebrations

Give gifts that delight, inspire and educate

Challenge: You want to help your loved ones eat more healthfully.

Family and friends might be interested in learning about your healthy lifestyle – and welcome you to share recipes and healthful eating tips. Or they might not. Either way, you can share delicious, Nutritarian foods with them.

Action Item: If you’re looking for gifts that are healthy yet indulgent treats, a jar of Date-Nut Pop’ems is perfect. For a friend who is excited to make healthy changes, add a copy of Eat For Life or The Eat To Live Cookbook. And if they’re a Nutritarian newbie, tell them to check out the free 4-Step QuickStart to the Nutritarian Diet, available on DrFuhrman.com.

Don’t let your healthy habits slide

Challenge: The holidays are busy and stressful – and you’re tempted to skip workouts and turn to food for comfort.

Now more than ever, it’s important to maintain your level of commitment to the Nutritarian lifestyle. Remember all the things you usually do to avoid being tempted by conventional foods? Keep doing them!

Dedicate time for food preparation, meal planning, and exercise
Avoiding temptation starts at the supermarket: keep junk foods out of the house
Have a large salad every day
Keep fresh fruit and cut up raw veggies on hand
Stop eating before you feel full

Action Item: Exercise control. Don’t let the holiday rush disrupt your food preparation and exercise schedule. It’s not always easy to squeeze in all the activities important to our health and well-being, but when you make it routine, it’s convenient to eat healthfully, and it works. Having a routine helps you avoid falling into destructive habits when you feel stressed or rushed. A workout skipped here and a fast food meal there eventually add up. That’s why it’s especially important to keep your commitment to excellent health in mind during especially busy or disruptive times – like the holiday season.

Crave excellent health

Challenge: You’re tempted to indulge in junk foods – just a little. That’s OK, right?

Remember that conventional food is junk food, and it is addictive. The temptation to overindulge in these foods on holidays is precisely because of their addictive properties.^1,2 Awakening these old cravings, even for one meal, is unwise. Once you’ve become accustomed to healthful eating, a junk food meal will make you feel ill, sluggish and uncomfortable. No momentary pleasure is worth years of poor health. I always say, “Those foods don’t taste so good once your in the coffin.”

Emotional stress, salty foods, large fatty meals, weight gain, and alcohol – all common during the holidays – put stress on the cardiovascular system and are commonly reported triggers of heart attacks.^3-8 Impaired vascular function, insulin resistance, inflammation, depletion of circulating antioxidants, and increased blood pressure have all been reported after a single low-nutrient meal, whether high in saturated fat, salt, white flour and added sugars, or combinations of the three.^9-20

Sources:
The obesity epidemic: the role of addiction
Eating and arterial endothelial function: a meta-analysis of the acute effects of meal consumption on flow-mediated dilation
Alcohol and Atrial Fibrillation: A Sobering Review
Emotional stressors trigger cardiovascular events
The "Merry Christmas Coronary" and "Happy New Year Heart Attack" phenomenon

Action item: Every time you sit down to a meal, you have a choice: You can choose foods that build your antioxidant defenses and support your health with vitamins, minerals, carotenoids, flavonoids, and more. Or you can choose foods that impair vascular function, cause dangerous spikes in blood glucose, and drive oxidative stress and inflammation. Our risk for chronic disease results from decades of these individual choices. The choice is clear – especially because you want to be around, in good health, to celebrate many, many more holidays in the future.

Be kind. Be inspiring.

Challenge: You’re concerned that your loved ones aren’t being careful with their health.

You may be worried about the health of some family members who partake in dangerous foods. Although sharing your knowledge in a kind manner may be well-intentioned, the best thing to do is set an example.

Action Item: Your enjoyment of healthful food and good health during the holidays sets an example for others to aspire to. Then, if a family member or friend is asking questions about your diet-style, great! They might be looking for motivation, tips for eating more healthfully, or an accountability buddy. Your support may help them get started on their journey to better health. Every day, every meal, every mouthful is a choice and an opportunity to build excellent health and be a role model for your loved ones. Every social occasion – in-person or virtual – is an opportunity to be a positive influence.

Action item: Share some of the success stories on the website, with someone you love, or watch one of Dr. Fuhrman’s recorded Nutri-Talk sessions.

Keep the focus off food

Although there’s usually a lot of focus on food, the holidays are about reconnecting with family and friends. Emphasize the holiday traditions that don’t involve food, like decorating, watching holiday movies, or playing cards or games. Keep your focus on enjoying quality time with your loved ones, rather than on the menu.

Wishing you the best of health, this holiday season and all year long!

Taylor VH, Curtis CM, Davis C. The obesity epidemic: the role of addiction. CMAJ 2010, 182:327-328.
Avena NM, Gold JA, Kroll C, Gold MS. Further developments in the neurobiology of food and addiction: update on the state of the science. Nutrition 2012, 28:341-343.
Ghiasmand M, Moghadamnia MT, Pourshaikhian M, Kazemnejad Lili E. Acute triggers of myocardial infarction: A case-crossover study. Egypt Heart J 2017, 69:223-228.
Smyth A, O'Donnell M, Lamelas P, et al. Physical Activity and Anger or Emotional Upset as Triggers of Acute Myocardial Infarction: The INTERHEART Study. Circulation 2016, 134:1059-1067.
Schwartz BG, French WJ, Mayeda GS, et al. Emotional stressors trigger cardiovascular events. Int J Clin Pract 2012, 66:631-639.
Voskoboinik A, Prabhu S, Ling LH, et al. Alcohol and Atrial Fibrillation: A Sobering Review. J Am Coll Cardiol 2016, 68:2567-2576.
Thom NJ, Early AR, Hunt BE, et al. Eating and arterial endothelial function: a meta-analysis of the acute effects of meal consumption on flow-mediated dilation. Obes Rev 2016, 17:1080-1090.
Kloner RA. The "Merry Christmas Coronary" and "Happy New Year Heart Attack" phenomenon. Circulation 2004, 110:3744-3745.
Ramirez-Velez R. [Postprandial lipemia induces endothelial dysfunction and higher insulin resistance in healthy subjects]. Endocrinol Nutr 2011, 58:529-535.
Ceriello A, Quagliaro L, Piconi L, et al. Effect of postprandial hypertriglyceridemia and hyperglycemia on circulating adhesion molecules and oxidative stress generation and the possible role of simvastatin treatment. Diabetes 2004, 53:701-710.
Tsai WC, Li YH, Lin CC, et al. Effects of oxidative stress on endothelial function after a high-fat meal. Clin Sci (Lond) 2004, 106:315-319.
Rocha DM, Bressan J, Hermsdorff HH. The role of dietary fatty acid intake in inflammatory gene expression: a critical review. Sao Paulo Med J 2017, 135:157-168.
Dickinson KM, Clifton PM, Keogh JB. Endothelial function is impaired after a high-salt meal in healthy subjects. Am J Clin Nutr 2011, 93:500-505.
Mohanty P, Ghanim H, Hamouda W, et al. Both lipid and protein intakes stimulate increased generation of reactive oxygen species by polymorphonuclear leukocytes and mononuclear cells. Am J Clin Nutr 2002, 75:767-772.
Hennig B, Toborek M, McClain CJ. High-energy diets, fatty acids and endothelial cell function: implications for atherosclerosis. J Am Coll Nutr 2001, 20:97-105.
Lemkes BA, Hermanides J, Devries JH, et al. Hyperglycemia: a prothrombotic factor? J Thromb Haemost 2010, 8:1663-1669.
Mohanty P, Hamouda W, Garg R, et al. Glucose challenge stimulates reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation by leucocytes. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2000, 85:2970-2973.
Fujimoto K, Hozumi T, Watanabe H, et al. Acute hyperglycemia induced by oral glucose loading suppresses coronary microcirculation on transthoracic Doppler echocardiography in healthy young adults. Echocardiography 2006, 23:829-834.