The holiday season can be exhilarating, exhausting, or challenging – sometimes, all at the same time. It’s also a time when we can indulge in unhealthy habits that can have serious reprecussions that last far beyond the festive season.

So whether you find the holiday season joyous, tedious, or somewhere in between, it’s important to stay focused on our well-being and avoid seasonal hazards. From the time crunch of shopping to holiday baking traditions and gifted food baskets, stressful situations and dangerous foods are everywhere. Here’s how to deal.

Hazard #1: Piling on the Stress

Sure, we want to find the perfect gift for every loved one on our list – but it’s often difficult to figure out what it is. Shopping and other holiday preparations may start cutting into the time you usually reserve for exercise and food preparation. Maybe there is conflict in your family, and you anticipate difficult conversations, or you feel lonely because you’re unable to visit your loved ones this year. Just like junk food, stress is bad for your health.

Take charge of stressful situations:

Remember, your family knows you love them. Although finding a great gift is satisfying, it’s everyday kindness and thoughtfulness that really matters.
Maintain your healthy routines during busy or disruptive times. Having a regular food preparation and exercise schedule will help you avoid falling into bad habits when you’re in a rush.
Take self-care seriously. Exercise is one of the best tools available for stress relief, and nourishing your body with health-promoting foods and getting enough sleep will help a lot too.
If your family can’t get together this year, take advantage of the technology that allows us to be together even when we’re not. Step up: be the one to plan the virtual family gathering.

Related: Exercise is essential for heart health, slowing aging, and cognitive function

Hazard #2: Equating Food with Family Bonding

Baking holiday treats with friends or family can be a fun and traditional bonding experience in your family. But once the baking is done, there are usually lots of tempting, low-nutrient foods in your home. Baked goods are mostly sugar, white flour, and oil, a recipe for an addictive food.^1,2

Maintain only the healthful holiday traditions:

Emphasize holiday traditions that don’t involve food, like decorating, watching holiday movies, or trimming the tree.
Holiday baking doesn’t have to include oil, sugar, and white flour. Rolled oats, dates, raisins, and nut butters make delicious cookies too. But remember: it is still possible to overeat on healthful foods and take in excess calories, which negatively affects your health. Enjoy a dried fruit-sweetened dessert after dinner, but don’t snack on homemade desserts when you’re not hungry, and don’t eat to the point of physical fullness.

Recipe ideas:
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies filled with Blueberry Jam
Pignoli Cookies
Pumpkin Spice Cookies

Hazard #3: Overindulging on junk food

Food traditions are difficult to break, and most traditional holiday food is junk food. But just about every traditional holiday food has a healthful counterpart that is just as enjoyable and won’t have you feeling bloated and sluggish afterward.

Remember that overindulging stresses the cardiovascular system. Indulging in a meal made up mostly of oils, sugars, white flour and animal foods immediately impairs vascular function, increasing your risk of having a stroke or heart attack, especially during the holidays when stress, dehydration and excessive alcohol use also come into play.^3-7

Related: Don’t succumb to “Holiday Heart”
Get started: Beginner’s Guide to the Nutritarian diet

Tips:

Recognize that your health is something to nurture and cherish, and that maintaining your health and well-being will allow you to enjoy time with your family for as many years as possible.
Follow a Nutritarian diet: Choose foods that build your antioxidant defenses and support your health, and avoid foods that stress the cardiovascular system, cause dangerous spikes in blood glucose, and drive oxidative stress and inflammation.
Eastablish new food traditions: Plan a Nutritarian menu, and treat your friends and family to a beautiful, healthful, and tasty plant-based spread.

Recipe ideas:
Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms
Pecan and Sage-Stuffed Acorn Squash
Lentil and Mushroom Shepherd's Pie with Cauliflower Mash

Most importantly, continue your Nutritarian lifestyle during the holiday season. Post these 6 words on your fridge, and put a card in your pocket so you can pull it out to remind you that the most proven methodology to slow aging is:

Moderate calorie restriction with micronutrient excellence

In other words, do not eat until full. Try to eat lots of greens but fewer calories than usual over this holiday season, not more. We can desire fewer calories if we eat large salads and chew them well, and have large servings of cooked greens with mushrooms and onions—so keep going with your good Nutritarian habits, limit concentrated calories including healthful desserts, and get more sleep and exercise through this period, not less. If overweight, keep your weight loss consistently moving in the right direction each week through December and January. Remember – you have 2 options. Either you make progress or you make excuses. Which one are you going to choose?