We’ve all heard the old joke that the Yom Tov experience can be summed up by the acronym ESP – eat, sleep, and pray. Ideally, your Yamim Tovim will be a fulfilling, meaningful, spiritual experience, but for many, there is also the concern about eating too much and gaining weight during this season. If this is a challenge you face, read on. I’ve outlined eight steps you can take to empower yourself to make good choices about food, and to lessen any stress you might feel around the numerous Yom Tov meals and on the days before, in-between, and immediately after the holidays.
1) Don’t panic. Plan. At least a few days before the yomim tovim, get out a notebook or calendar and write out a plan. This could include reasonable, modest goals such as maintaining a healthy eating pattern, and continuing with some form of movement or exercise, such as a walk, on most days. Write everything down in advance of the holidays: your goals, plans, worries, concerns, thoughts, feelings.
2) Eat regularly and do not skip meals. Don’t “save up your calories for a splurge” – in other words, don’t eat only a little in the morning or afternoon so that you can have a big meal at the evening seuda. Rather, aim to eat within an hour of waking and then every three to four hours. This is not “grazing”; it is how our metabolic and digestive systems do best, according to most health experts. If you do not eat throughout the day, the urge to eat will build, and eating within reasonable guidelines will become more difficult.
If you have concerns about eating before davening, consult with your rav about what would be acceptable for you. Keep in mind that research shows that eating breakfast is important for anyone wanting to achieve and maintain a healthy weight, and that staying at a healthy weight is a key step in managing many chronic health conditions.
3) Find positive support. Your spouse, your mother, your sister, or your friend may or may not be helpful. A positive support person is someone who is kind and encouraging and knows how to listen. After talking with this person, you should feel uplifted and supported, not judged or criticized. Some people may need to seek professional help in this area, or join a support group. It is an art and a skill to be an effective support person, and not all our relatives or friends are up to the task, despite their good intentions.
4) Reduce “food fog.” Plan as much as possible for each individual Yom Tov meal. Some people have menu plans for each meal weeks in advance. (I am in awe of these people!) The more you plan, the easier it will be to stick to your strategy and achieve your goals. In addition to writing down what you plan to serve at each meal, you can also write down which meals you will eat at home, which meals you are eating elsewhere, and the approximate times for all the meals. Other factors to consider as you plan: At which meals might your choices be more limited, or perhaps dictated by a minhag or family tradition? Who is going to be at each meal? (See #5 for more on this.) Here’s a good example of additional types of details you might want to think about in advance: On Rosh Hashana, lunch is served a couple of hours later than on a regular Shabbos. Keeping that in mind, will you need a snack at shul or at home around 11 a.m. or noon? I often hear people talk about getting too hungry because a meal was delayed and then feeling out of control at the meal and eating more than is ideal.
5) Consider complex food challenges. I coined this term to describe situations that lead people to eat more or less than they feel comfortable with, resulting in unhelpful thoughts and negative feelings during and after the meal. They may feel shame, guilt, anger, or sadness. They may think they behaved like a glutton or demonstrated poor willpower, or that they held back too much and deprived themselves unnecessarily of special holiday foods. For example, perhaps you always feel good at your mother’s home, because she understands your needs and makes wonderful chicken, green beans, and sweet potatoes and downplays dessert. Your pushy sister-in-law, though, has a dessert business and expects everyone at her table to try all her rich concoctions. She seems to not care about your eating plan and will be offended if you don’t follow the crowd around the table.
Or maybe you are the type of person who gets overwhelmed when you have to eat at a table with 15 or 20 people, with everyone freely enjoying a wide variety of dishes. Or perhaps your aunt from out-of-town will be at the meal, the one who always seems to comment about what and how much people are eating.
In short, identify your own complex food challenges – situations that pressure you to veer from your plan – and develop strategies ahead of time to cope with them.
6) Keep healthy foods at hand. Have ready-made mini-meals and snacks that are convenient and portable, so that you can eat something healthy when hunger strikes and dinner is not till 9 or 10 p.m. or lunch is still hours away. Some snacks to have on hand may include fruit, nuts, seeds, humus or other bean dips, raw veggies, cheese wedges or sticks, protein bars and shakes, hardboiled eggs, and a pot of vegetable or bean soup.
7) Don’t feel compelled to keep high-risk or trigger foods in your house. Your family members and guests do not have to have junk food. You do not have to have these foods in your house if they are not safe for you, regardless of who is visiting. This doesn’t mean you have to become an ascetic and purge your house of all treats and goodies; it just means you should allow yourself the right to not keep around those foods that are problematic for you. So if a carrot cake, zucchini bread, or blueberry crumble is not a trigger for you to overeat, feel free to keep these on hand. This can be a delicate balancing act, so think about it in advance.
8) Be kind to yourself. Remember, making changes is a process, and you don’t have to be perfect. Even if you do gain some weight over the holidays, incorporating some of the above suggestions will be a positive experience that just may lead to healthier habits year round. Research shows that small incremental changes over time can translate into big improvements. Learn from the times you did not handle a meal as well as you would have liked; analyze the aspects that did not go smoothly, and plan ways to handle them differently in the future.
Lauren Mirkin, CNS, LDN, LGPC, is a licensed nutritionist and counselor who enjoys helping people plan healthy meals, and strategize around difficult food situations – as an essential part of her practice. Contact her at 443-326-7023 or 443-326-7023 or holisticnutritionist@verizon.net.
Sweet Orange Vegetable Soup
Here’s a recipe for a healthy soup that can help with sweet cravings. May you have a sweet and healthy New Year!
- Chop 1 – 2 onions, and 2 stalks of celery.
- In a medium to large soup pot, sauté vegetables in 1 – 2 tablespoons olive, walnut, or high oleic safflower oil for 5 – 7 minutes until soft.
- Add 6 – 8 cups of water or organic vegetable broth, such as Image Foods Pacific Foods, or Trader Joe’s brand (all have appropriate hechshers).
- Add 4 cups sweet potatoes, yams, or butternut squash, 2 cups carrots, and 1 cup potatoes, all peeled and diced.
- Season with one tablespoon cinnamon, one teaspoon ginger, and 1 – 3 teaspoons of salt. (Adjust to taste.)
- Bring to a boil and then simmer, covered, until the vegetables are very soft, about 45 minutes.
- Place all or part of the cooked soup in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth.
- Return to stove, adjust seasonings, and serve hot.
