Diabetes: You're Food Choices and the Holidays

It's that time of year again as we are rapidly approaching the Holiday Season.  With the holidays come plenty of foods and sweets.  This means company parties, not to mention the celebrations with your friends and family.  There are several ways to help you make the right choices and still enjoy some of the holiday cheer like everyone else will be doing.  There are a couple of pointers you can learn when attending your holiday functions without undoing all your work you have been doing when it comes to taking care of your diabetes.

Before attending a party that will have tempting foods suggest to the hostess to maybe have something there that will fall within your choices for good eating habits.  Another suggestion is that you can bring something with you.   You can also have a healthy snack before you leave home to curb any cravings while you are out.  Even around the holidays there can be good choices to make simply by preparing your foods as you always have..  If you are eating at someone else's house give them suggestions that will be good for you and others without compromising the taste of those dishes.  Some dishes just don't taste the same and can't be avoided and for those, if you have to have some, take no more than a tablespoon helping to curb that craving.

You can also make sure that you do not forfeit your exercises because this of all times is when you are going to need it more than you ever had before.  By keeping up with your exercises and maybe doing a bit more you stay in the safe zone when it comes to maintaining your diabetes.  For those times we slip up and snatch that one cookie or take a piece of pie which can be ok if you can control yourself and only take very small pieces and continue to eat the foods you know you can eat.  Another good way to enjoy the holiday foods is make sure your proportions are moderate and within your diet range and then eat plenty of salads and veggies to where you are filling your hunger and then have just one cookie or a sliver of pie.

This way when you are starting to fill that fullness, then the last thing that is on your pallet is something sweet and therefore you will not want to go overboard on everything else and crash your eating habits.  When it comes to the sweet side of things, all of your holiday desserts are not lost forever, in fact when you make your cakes, cookies and pies all you need to do is to substitute splenda in place of regular sugar.  Remember that if you choose to make some person with diabetes desserts you will still need to monitor your intake of those foods