Festival diet tips: Maintain a healthy body weight with traditional foods
Festival means gathering, outing, traveling, and eating food with friends and families. During festivals, overeating is a prevalent issue for everybody. Sometimes it may concern people who are overweight or obese or who have some health issues. In this season, you cannot stay away from consuming extra calories, because it is difficult to maintain a proper routine. Therefore, you must be aware of what type of food you eat and the quantities and qualities of food.
During the festival season, it is difficult to continue a weight loss journey but you should be aware of how to control weight gain. Here, I am sharing some useful tips to help you maintain your body weight during the festival season.
How to deal with yummy foods and good health:
Focus on portion control:
You must have an idea about the quantity of food. You do not need to deprive yourself of any foods but consume them in a controlled way. The best way to keep yourself away from overeating is to fix your plate, fix your servings, and avoid repeating them.
Consider vitamins, minerals, and fiber in your diet:
During festivals, we all want to look good, right? Facials, pedicures, manicures, haircuts, and spas help us to look perfect and gorgeous from the outside. But you should be fit from your inner side also. During this season, maintaining a proper routine is very difficult but you must consider at least once a day, fresh seasonal vegetables, and fruits in your diet.
As we all know fruits and vegetables are good sources of essential vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. These nutrients help to maintain good skin, hair, etc. along with your overall health.
Avoid skipping a meal:
Do not skip your meal. Sometimes people think of skipping the main meal to avoid overeating. It is not a good idea because if you skip your main meal there is a big chance of eating unhealthy snacks to fulfil your appetite. Therefore, it is better to take every meal in the right quantities. It helps you to maintain your appetite and automatically reduces your street food consumption levels.
Do not feel guilty, enjoy sweets:
Every festival has its own specialty by culturally, regionally, traditionally, and of course food-wise. You have a good chance to taste the special foods on a special occasion, so do not miss it. For example, in India, Durga Puja, Navaratri, Diwali, Holi, Ganesh Chaturthi, etc., are all special festivals. In India, sweets are the symbol of our traditional food.
For every special occasion, people make different types of homemade sweets which are safe because these are homemade. You have full control over the raw materials, oils, sugar, salt, etc. Gajar ka halwa, coconut laddu, puffed rice laddu, Khoi ka laddu, rice pudding, rasgolla, sesame (Teel) ka laddu, almond kheer, etc. are the most common and traditional sweets that you can enjoy. If you check, most of the ingredients needed to make these sweets are healthy instead of sugar. Always remember, if you follow a proper routine throughout the year, then 3-4 days is not a big deal. Therefore, do not feel guilty at all about tasting sweets and take them in a limited amount. People who have high blood sugar levels must consult with an expert before consuming sweets.
Try to have one meal at home:
During festivals, most of the time, we choose to eat outside. Continuously eating street foods or fast foods can affect your health. Not only that, but it can also create an issue for your digestive system. Therefore, it is advisable that always try to eat at least one healthy meal at your home and the meal should be low-carb- add vegetables, salad, and probiotics to your diet.
Sleep properly:
At the festival, people get tired and feel stressed. Sleeping is the mechanism that helps us to re-energize both physically and mentally. Therefore, if you want to enjoy your occasion then do not spoil your sleep. Try to sleep 7-8 hours regularly, it gives you full energy to enjoy your next day.
Try to stay active:
During festivals, regular physical activities are not easy but you have to try to be active. You can walk for 45-60 min, and do some exercise (plank, spot jogging, free-hand, skipping, yoga, etc.) at your home for 45-60 min. It helps you to maintain your fitness as well as helps you to maintain your body weight.
You should limit or avoid these foods:
Try to avoid fast foods, junk foods, deep fried foods as much as you can. A good way to avoid such foods is to always eat some healthy foods like salad, any seasonal fruit, dry fruits, etc. as a snack before you leave your home. It helps you to feel less appetite which can help you to avoid overeating as well as avoid consuming unhealthy stuff.
Always try to avoid sweets which are available in the market. During festivals, many sweets are available in our local market. It would be best if you avoided this. During festival time, when we go to our relatives' or friends’ houses, people serve sweets traditionally. In this situation it is very difficult to say ‘no’ but if you want to maintain your body weight you have to say ‘No’ politely. But if you have a choice to eat homemade sweets, you can try this in a limited way.
Try to avoid unhealthy drinks. When you are going for an outing or pandal hopping, it is very natural to drink something like cold drinks, soda water, other sugary drinks, etc. These are not good for your health. Therefore, try to avoid these types of drinks as much as you can. Better to choose lassi, fruit juice, coconut water, etc.
Be aware of hygiene. During festivals, many street food stalls, restaurants, and hotels are available to serve us. However, all of them do not maintain proper hygiene. When you eat some food or drink something from anywhere, you must be aware of the hygiene of this place. Because, if your food is contaminated by any chance, it can spoil your festival.
Bottom line:
Every festival has its specialty, all are different traditionally, socially, and culturally. Therefore, always be a part of your festival. Do not miss the chance. If you maintain a healthy routine throughout the year, 4-5 days do not make a huge change for you. But you should do this in a controlled way. In festive time, it is difficult to lose weight but you can manage your body weight successfully. If you control your body weight successfully, it will be helpful for your post-festival journey.
0 Comments