Nutrition Tuneup
Vanessa Houssels, Las Vegas, NV Facilitator

Nutrition Tips for a Healthy Holiday

The beginning of the feasting season has officially arrived and the party invitations have begun to trickle in.  For most of us this means an excessive amount of cookies, pie, alcoholic beverages and just way to much turkey with all of the trimmings. The holidays can be a wonderful time to reconnect with family and friends but if we aren’t careful this blissful time of year can end up packing on not only additional stress but also unwanted extra pounds.

The average American gains between 1-10 pounds over the holiday season....ouchh! This does not have to be a statistic that applies to you.  While this may not be the best time of year to try and lose weight, you can certainly maintain your current weight.  The best way to avoid both stress and weight gain is to plan ahead. 

I have put together the following 10 healthy tips for the best guilt-free holiday ever. 

1. Just Breathe - This time of year we almost always over schedule, over spend and overeat and we end up stressed and not enjoying the real meaning of the holidays. Set your alarm on your phone to remind yourself to just breathe. My alarm on my iPhone goes off everyday at 1:00 pm.  No matter what I am doing I stop and take five slow deep breaths in and five slow deep breaths out. Works like a charm.

2. Never arrive at a holiday party hungry - Make sure that you eat a light meal before you arrive. Apple slices with a bit of nut butter is a great choice. So often people will skip a meal before attending an event to “save their calories for the good stuff” but this almost always ends in them consuming many more calories because they are absolutely famished by the time the party arrives.

3. Drink plenty of water - Alcohol is particularly dehydrating. A good rule of thumb is for each glass of wine or beer that you consume, drink a glass of water. This will also cut down on the amount of calories that would be consumed if you were only drinking the bubbly.

4. Be a social butterfly - The more you work the room with your charm and charisma the less time you have to overly indulge in the cheese tray.

5. Eat your fruits and vegetables - Not only are they loaded with immune boosting Phytochemicals, vitamins, and minerals, but they are also very low in calories. The more fiber rich fruits and veggies you consume the less room you’ll have for the high fat empty calorie treats.

6. Always offer to bring a favorite healthy dish to a holiday gathering - This is the easiest way to stay on a healthy course nutritionally speaking during the holidays. A big beautiful salad loaded with lots of veggies and legumes is a simple dish that everyone will enjoy.

7. Leave the pie at the party – It’s great to enjoy a delicious dessert during the holidays but if you take home every doggy bag that is offered, you will quickly put on the freshman 15.

8. Lighten up your favorite holiday recipes - One easy tip is to leave out the oil. Try applesauce or ground flaxseed with water in place of oil in your favorite recipes. An egg can be replaced with ground flaxseed and water as well. If you Google “healthy food substitutions” on the internet you will be amazed at how much fat and empty calories that you can remove from your favorite recipes without sacrificing taste!

9. Use smaller plates - Our plates size has more than doubled in the last 50 years and so have our waistlines!

10. Take a hike - Enjoy an evening stroll with your family and friends after a big holiday meal.  This will not only help you shed the extra calories that you consumed at dinner but also allow for spending quality time with your loved ones as well as de-stress from the days activities.

Inspirational Woman of the Month
Carrie Kish, Valencia, CA Facilitator


Mother Teresa

No matter their politics or religion, most people recognize Mother Teresa as a great woman.  Her life and her work celebrate the simple joy of loving, the greatness and dignity of all people and the value of doing little things faithfully and with love.  She inspires me in so many ways, but most notably by being a leader in the world who affected change with one small action at time.  The legacy she leaves us is the knowledge that small things matter and that everyone has something to contribute.  Everyone. 

Mother Teresa once said, “Do not wait for leaders.  Do it alone, person to person.”  What she may not recognize, in her humility, is that this is actually true leadership.  And this is the kind of leader that Mother Teresa was.  This reminds me to
let go of the details and simply do the work that is in front of me now.  She also told us, “We cannot do great things.  We can only do small things with great love.”  She reminds us that a smile heals and it is ours to give.  Smile at someone today. 
She reminds us to love our neighbors, really.  For many of us, that means getting to know our neighbors.  And, with the holidays approaching, I also like to remember that Mother Teresa said, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”  It is a small act of kindness and humanity and it is something tangible that we can all do.

Leadership in the Lady’s Room

by Carrie Kish  
I was called to leadership in the lady’s room today.  There was a long line, which isn’t an unusual phenomenon, and there were two stalls that nobody was using.  I assumed, like everyone else, that there was something wrong with those stalls. 
But nobody had looked in them since I had entered.  The line continued to move with everyone simply ignoring those stalls.  Well, I decided to look.  And, you know what?  There was absolutely nothing wrong with either one.  They were just empty.  So, I announced it to the women waiting and we got the line moving.   

What else in our lives do we just assume is off limits or unavailable?  What else do we simply ignore and do like others are doing?  Why don’t we check?  Sometimes, it’s because we are lazy.  Sometimes, it’s because we’re afraid of what we’ll find.  We don’t want to see what we imagine might be there.  Sometimes, we are afraid of offending others.  We assume that they must have investigated that option already and we don’t want to insult them or embarrass them by suggesting a rather obvious solution.  Sometimes, we might be afraid to embarrass ourselves.  We don’t want to stand out or to make a scene.  And, sometimes, we are afraid of letting go of our current position (like losing our place in line) because we don’t know if we’ll be able to get it back.  We want to be able to secure our new position without letting go of the old one first.  And the last lesson, for me today, is that necessity is the mother of invention.  When you feel some urgency (if you get my meaning),
you can get really creative and inventive.