With the new year on the rise and before you start with the resolutions, be sure to start taking care of yourself now.
You know year after year that through the parties, traditions and get togethers that the goodies are never spared. This all gives you the excuse to take off from thanksgiving to the new year and put on that excess wait and put you further behind the 8 ball than you already are.
Let's change it up a bit this year and follow these 5 tips to help you keep the bloat off leading to a happier you, inside and out.
1. The staple in your diet should be vegetable based meals.
Vegetables should be the focus of your consumption over the holidays. This doesn't mean eating boring iceberg salad or baked potatoes with no dressings.
Instead try having 2/3 of your plate being colorful veggie options. Having baked sweet potato chips with fresh guac or salsa. Or a dark green salad with beet roots, carrots, kale, spinach with balsamic vinegarette or fresh squeezed lemon and thyme.
If you focus on having a delicious combination of fresh and cooked vegetables, the other foods you eat will be in much smaller quantities and the vegetables, especially the raw salads, will help you to digest the other foods you eat.
If you have been eating very little fibrous or fresh food and you start eating large amounts of fresh produce, you can expect to see some bloating in your belly temporarily as the vegetables awaken old waste and get things moving in your intestines. Don’t let this deter you, simply increase your veggie intake slowly and it will pass quickly leaving you with a flatter and happier belly.
2. Skip the fruit salad dessert
Fruit salad is healthy, but it becomes a digestive nightmare when eaten as dessert after heavier foods like turkey, cooked vegetables, bread, grains or potatoes.
Fruit moves through the body very quickly, so when it is eaten after a meal that is slower to digest there will be a traffic jam in your intestines. This creates a lot of gas, fermentation, bloating and discomfort. It also means you won’t as effectively absorb the nutrients from the food you’ve eaten, nor will you eliminate it into the toilet completely. That’s a recipe for bloating and weight gain!
Instead have some high quality 70% plus dark chocolate (in this situation it is a better choice than fruit!) or enjoy a fresh almond milk chai.
3. combine different foods for easy digestion.
Different types of foods take different times to digest and require different enzymes to break them down, meaning your assimilation of the nutrients from these foods will be impaired and your digestion will be compromised, causing bloating, gas and constipation. For example, animal foods take around four to five hours to leave the stomach while starches (grains, bread, etc) take around three to four hours to leave the stomach.
If you eat foods from these two groups together at the same time (think fish and potato, chicken and rice, turkey sandwiches) the time for that meal to leave the stomach has now been increased to seven to nine hours, and that’s provided you haven’t thrown in other food groups like fruit or nuts too! That’s a whole lot of extra time your body is spending on digestion when that energy could be spent on cleaning out your temple, removing toxicity and giving you energy.
Keep your animal foods and starches away from each other (eat them with fresh vegetables instead). You will be left with a healthier body (and mind – digestive health plays a huge role in your mental and emotional health too) and a calmer, flatter belly.
4. Refrain or limit the big no-nos
If you are intent on eating heavily processed foods, large servings of red meats, refined sugar, cakes, cookies and refined salt, you will suffer with bloating. These foods are just not designed to go into our bodies!
Instead choose the highest quality foods and bring dishes to your holiday parties that emphasize these foods, of course along with plenty of fresh and cooked vegetables. Choose fish, organic eggs and organic raw dairy. Focus on grains like millet, quinoa, brown rice and buckwheat. Enjoy healthy cookies made with clean ingredients, like these. Forget refined salt and instead pick up the pretty pink Himalayan crystal salt or Celtic sea salt. Ditch white sugar and go for stevia, yacon syrup, raw honey or pure maple syrup.
Make these switches and you will be pleasing your palette while your body becomes stronger, healthier and slimmer.
5. Hydrate and flush.
You need to drink enough pure, clean water and organic hydration from fresh fruits and vegetables to keep toxins flushing through you. Water is essential to life and it is also essential to reducing and preventing bloating.
Drink pure water every day as the first thing you consume. If you don’t like your water straight up, try this or add some lemon juice or lemon slices.
Herbal tea is also great but avoid coffee and tea as much as possible and if you do choose to include them drink extra water and fresh vegetable juice to help counter their dehydrating effects and acidity.
This will help to minimize bloating and weight gain.
Put these tips into place and enjoy a healthy, happy holiday season with a bloat-free middle!