INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The holiday season is filled with festive eats and tasty treats that are hard to avoid. The good news is, according to one Indy-area doctor, there are ways to indulge without hurting your overall health.
Dr. Nimisha Swali, a family doctor with IU Health, says it’s all about “intentional indulgence”: savoring “the best of it” while keeping some structure and balance in your diet.
Here are some of her tips:
Pay attention to the way you load up your plate.
“You want to have about half your food being about greens, vegetables or fruits. You don’t have to eat everything, but find a few things that you love.”
Mashed potatoes with butter, the doctor told Daybreak anchor Scott Sander, do not count as a vegetable.
“(Potato) is a vegetable, but it doesn’t have all the good things we need. But…a little bit is definitely okay!”
‘Tis the season for healthy eating!
Believe it or not, the holidays are a good time to start doing some healthy eating.
“There is never a wrong time to start healthy eating. One thing you can do is, everything in moderation. You don’t have to stop eating all those amazing things. You don’t have to say no to any of those desserts. But you need to do it moderation,” Dr. Swali said.
Swali suggests paying attention to portion size.
“That doesn’t mean don’t eat at all. It means checking in with your body. If you have a smaller plate, try to do half of it with greens, about a third of it with some sort of complex carbs like brown rice, and then putting a protein on the other third.”
If you indulge, get up and get moving!
“A study in 2022 showed that getting up and walking around after you eat can actually decrease your blood sugar and decrease the insulin that your body is producing. After those big heavy meals, get your body moving, walking around,” Swali said.
You don’t have to sign up for a Turkey Trot to help your body after a holiday meal, but Dr. Swali says people who take part in those events are “actually doing great things to help their body move and help their metabolism.”
Click here for more holiday eating advice from IU Health.
