Surviving The Holiday Season

Podcast Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Love Your Heart, brought to you by Cleveland Clinic's Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart, Vascular, and Thoracic Institute. These podcasts will help you learn more about your heart, thoracic, and vascular systems, ways to stay healthy, and information about diseases and treatment options. Enjoy.

Natalie Salvatore:

Hello, my name is Natalie Salvatore. I'm a registered nurse at the Cleveland Clinic in the Heart, Vascular and Thoracic Institute. And joining me today is Julia Zumpano, a registered dietician at Cleveland Clinic in the Department of Preventive Cardiology.

Julia Zumpano:

Thanks for having me today, Natalie.

Natalie Salvatore:

So today I wanted to talk about how to stay on track during the holidays. What makes the holiday season so difficult?

Julia Zumpano:

Well, food can definitely be a focal point in the holiday season. Parties, gatherings, and any get togethers are more frequent than other times of the year. So we want to keep in mind that we are exposed to more choices to over eat and indulge during the holiday season. Your activities may be different as well, so you may be out of the house longer than normal, doing your holiday shopping, also may not be following your normal exercise routine.

Natalie Salvatore:

I haven't even considered those long shopping trips. What are some things to consider if you plan on being out of the house for a long time?

Julia Zumpano:

I generally recommend trying to have a solid meal before you go, trying to include a good source of protein, a lot of vegetables, a complex carbohydrate that will contain some fiber or a starchy vegetable, just some form of healthy grain. And then depending on how long you'll be out, grabbing some healthy snacks with you to keep in your bag or in your car. Healthy snacks that are portable would be nuts, dry roasted nuts or unsalted preferably, a light cheese stick, some low sodium crackers, a protein bar, maybe a portable protein shake or a piece of fruit. Depending on the weather outside, you can even pack something like a boiled egg or some turkey roll ups in your car for a short period of time. If possible, you can even grab some veggies with a dip or some hummus. All of these could be really healthy snacks that can be nice and filling while you're heading out, especially if you didn't have the opportunity to have a meal before you left the house.

Natalie Salvatore:

One of my favorite things to do while shopping is to grab a nice cup of coffee to sip on while I walk around. Do you have any suggestions for beverages?

Julia Zumpano:

Coffee on its own is very low on calories, about five calories per eight ounce cup of coffee, so pretty much void of calories. But what you get into when you're going to a coffee shop or ordering coffee out is that these coffee beverages can have a lot of calories. They don't even have that much coffee in them per se, most of the times they're made with espresso, and then a lot of milk and sugar and syrups and whipped cream and whatever toppings that you want to add or can include, can add a tremendous amount of overall fat calories and sugar specifically. So you really want to limit the add-ons and make your coffee drinks very simple, like a plain coffee with a little bit of a creamer milk or a plain latte, which is just an espresso with steam milk.

So you just want to keep it very, very simple when you're out and about. If you're not a coffee drinker, you also want to be careful with any of the tea drinks that can be high in sugar or soft drinks that you might be grabbing from a vending machine or juices or smoothies. Those all, again, can have a lot of added sugar, tend to be excessive in portions when you're eating out or when you're out and about too. So you want to keep in mind that any drink calories are going to add up pretty quickly other than of course water and a simple coffee beverage.

Natalie Salvatore:

You've made some great points about staying on track while out shopping. I didn't realize or think about all of those beverage concerns. I was just thinking, I travel a lot during the holidays too, and these would also be great tips to keep in mind if you're traveling.

Julia Zumpano:

Definitely. Traveling can also kind of get you in a trap because there's usually limited places to stop. You're at a fast food or a gas station, so there's not necessarily always healthy choices there. If that is where you happen to stop, you definitely want to stick to things like salads and protein shakes or protein bars, fresh fruit, nuts, cheese sticks, things like that, that are a little bit more frequently now found at most larger gas stations. If you also can plan ahead and pack snacks, that would be ideal to kind of alleviate the option of stopping and even making a poor choice there too.

Natalie Salvatore:

Now, you mentioned all the parties and gatherings are another challenge to stay on track during the holiday season. What advice do you have to sticking to your heart healthy diet during a holiday party?

Julia Zumpano:

This can be very challenging. You really want to make it a point to set up a plan or have a mindset on how to manage these extra temptations and indulgences because they can lead to excess weight gain or increasing your blood pressure. They can also have negative effects on your heart. Just like the shopping trip advice, try to have a meal or a snack before you go to your gathering. Of course, make sure that meal is as healthy as possible, low in fat, high in protein, high in fiber. What we want to accomplish by this is to decrease your appetite and to help you minimize portions when you are going to the gathering. One thing you also want to keep in mind when you are at the party is what you're filling your plate with. So, we really want to focus on vegetables. We want half of your plate to be filled with vegetables. If there is lean protein available, that's another good thing to stack up on your plate.

And then really minimizing simple carbs side dishes like noodles or rice or pasta or snack chips or snack foods, desserts, of course. So we really want to focus on lean protein and vegetables as much as we can. Another challenge during the holidays is alcohol. We talked about the coffee drinks and the other beverages is the alcohol. So the holiday season can increase your opportunity to consume alcohol. Try to choose lower calorie alcoholic beverages such as wine or a very light beer. You want to stick to a drier wine or champagne. Champagnes, actually, dry champagnes can be quite low in calories, light beers. Of course, if you are going to do more mixed drinks or cocktails, keep in mind what we're mixing that with, what we're mixing the liquor with. You want to stick to a low calorie, no calorie mixer, like a carbonated water or a diet tonic if that's an option. Sticking to maybe enhancing the flavor a little bit with a lime or lemon or an orange slice.

So just keeping it very simple or asking cocktails to be made with less juice or syrup or whatever the sweetener may be in the beverage. Ask for that to be cut and then dilute it by just some water or carbonated water, soda water. So that's another tactic you can follow. Also keeping in mind drinking water too. So making sure you're very adamant about drinking enough water. So whether you carry a little water bottle around with you or you order a water in between alcoholic beverages, that's going to help keep you hydrated as well as hopefully help you consume less alcohol.

Natalie Salvatore:

That sounds great. Do you have any other advice for keeping on track for your heart healthy diet throughout the holidays?

Julia Zumpano:

Yeah, I think it's essential to make time to exercise. So it's pretty inevitable that we're going to consume extra calories during this time of year, but we don't want to take away from the joy of socializing, family and friends, and enjoying meals with families and friends during the holidays, but we really want to be able to enjoy some of those extra calories. And exercise is really important to offset that extra caloric intake. So whether you're able to actually go out and schedule extra runs or walks throughout your day or go to the gym, I think if that's not available to you since the holiday season can be very busy, just thinking of multiple little 10 to 15 increments throughout your day where you can get in some exercise, whether you just get up from your desk if you're at work and take a walk or take the stairs, park farther with your car, get up 10 or 15 minutes earlier and do some resistance exercises.

Make sure that you try to pack your lunch more often, which can decrease calories, but then gives you the opportunity to maybe do some exercise or physical activity during your lunch. So just really any activity that you can focus on during the holidays is really going to be very, very helpful. My last tip would be to focus more so on the socialization and gathering portion of the holiday season. So this is a great opportunity to spend extra time with family and friends and even coworkers where you really want to focus on the people that you're with during that event versus the food or the drinks. So really kind of make it a point to shift your focus a little bit, and that may also help you be more controlled in your food and beverage choices. And most importantly, enjoy and stay safe and have fun.

Natalie Salvatore:

Great. So I think the things that I've heard from you talking about for the holidays would be to have a nice balanced meal before you go out, whether that's on an all day shopping trip or to a gathering. And when you do eat, make sure that you fill your plate mostly with vegetables and to be mindful and cautious of our beverages and how they can add up in the calories and fats and sugars. And if you're going to be gone all day, whether it's traveling or shopping, make sure to pack some healthy snacks to avoid the food court or fast food. And of course, make time to exercise and hydrate and enjoy your family and loved ones.

Julia Zumpano:

Sounds great, Natalie.

Announcer:

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