Holiday Eating - from the 12-20-10 issue of Bandwagon on the Road

Food has been the guest of honor at human gatherings since the beginning of time. When I watch my gang of dogs attack their kibble, ferociously protecting it from others, I think that sharing food must be a uniquely human impulse (but then again, I'm not a zoologist). I've visited poverty-stricken countries where even a starving family will share a bowl of rice with a beggar. For many people, offering food to a guest is a point of pride. My own grandmother would not let anyone leave her house even remotely hungry. To be polite, you ate her food (with 2nd, 3rd and 4th helpings) even if you'd already eaten a generous meal before you arrived.

With that code of behavior underlying human social relationships, refusing food at holiday celebrations can make you look rude and unappreciative. So how do you safely navigate all those meals? You want to avoid the embarrassment of eating problems like PB's, sliming, or stuck episodes. You want to stick with your weight loss eating plan and go on losing weight (or at least maintaining your weight), but at the same time, you want to enjoy foods that only appear at this time of year. You don't want to call attention to your eating because it's nobody else's business (especially if you're with people who don't know about your weight loss surgery). What's a bandster to do?

Let's look at 3 of the most common holiday eating situations:

1. a meal or party at someone's home

2. a meal or party at a restaurant or other public venue

3. a meal or party at your own home

There is one piece of advice that applies to all three situations. I've mentioned this before...can you guess what it is? That's right, it's:



A D V A N C E P L A N N I N G !



Before each event, do your research. Make some calls to find out what food will be served. Restaurant parties sponsored by employers, unions, clubs & associations often involve a limited set menu - a choice of 2 or 3 entrees - so choose a safe one. I'd go with the fish instead of the prime rib or lasagna, for example. At other restaurant events, you can order from the menu, so call the restaurant (or look it up online) and choose 2 possible meals (in case one isn't available the day you're there).

If you're going to someone's home or to a potluck meal at work, church, or wherever, bring something healthy that you know you can eat and/or drink. A buffet style meal can be scary - how will you resist all those treats? - but it actually gives you some control over what ends up on your plate and in your mouth. First of all, take a tour of the buffet to identify the foods you can eat and want to eat (treats are allowed in small portions if you're sure you can resist the urge to go back to the buffet for more helpings). Choose 4 to 6 items that you're going to enjoy. If you want to try something you've never had before, use common sense in evaluating its risks. Avoid foods that in some other form have caused you eating problems in the past, and inspect the new food for texture and consistency - soft or cooked food is probably OK, but if you got stuck on a raw veggy last week, that gorgeous crudité platter probably isn't going to work for you this week.

Grab a salad or dessert plate instead of a dinner plate, and a small salad fork (if available). Put one spoonful of each of the selected items on your plate. Ignore the champagne fountain - it's mighty hard to balance a plate and a glass at the same time anyway. Find a place to sit or stand far away from the buffet. Eat your food slowly, paying attention to your eating skills and to the flavors in the food. Don't try to eat and chat at the same time. Use a conversation with another guest as a chance to take a break from your eating. You can also use it as an excuse to get rid of your plate (even if food is still on it) by saying something like, "I can't juggle this plate and visit at the same time - let me just put it down somewhere." Then you can become so engrossed in the conversation that you "forget" your plate altogether.

If the event is a sit-down meal, you'll have to adjust your approach depending on how the food is served. If your host or a waiter serves you a loaded plate, you can take a small bite every now and then while pushing the food around on your plate as if you're eating it, and if someone comments that you haven't finished your food, you can say, "Gosh, it's all so good, but it's just too much!" If the meal is served in a pass-the-serving-dish fashion, just pass the dish you're not going to eat without any comment at all. If someone says, "Aren't you going to try my special turtle-and-frog salad?" you can respond with something like, "Can you believe I had a huge turtle dinner just last night?" or "I'll have some of that the next time the dish goes around," or "Not tonight, thanks."

A meal or party at your own home will involve more work on your part but give you the most control over the menu. One of the advantages of being the host or hostess is that no one's going to be surprised if you're always busy fetching and carrying food and never seen actually eating it. If someone comments on your light (or non-existent) eating, you can say, "I'm so bad - I nibbled while I was cooking and now I'm too full to eat anything else."

The closer she comes, the scarier she looks

When I was growing up, lo those many years ago, there was a popular commercial for Clairol hair color. In this commercial, a beautiful woman and a handsome man ran towards each other through a field of flowers, with smiling joyous faces, arms outstretched, shiny hair streaming in the breeze (well, hers was, anyway). The tag line was, "The closer she comes, the better she looks," which implied that Clairol hair color was so convincingly real, its user's hair would actually look even better on closer inspection.

Later, someone did a spoof of the commercial in which the man and woman ran right past each other into someone else's arms, and I had a lot of fun re-enacting that scene with a coworker named Joe Riley when we caught sight of each other in the hallway one day...one of those spontaneously silly things that makes my life worth living. I'm not sure that our business associates thought it was funny as we did, but as Joe would've said, "To hell with you if you can't take a joke."

But anyway, back to the actual subject of this post. The closer the holidays come, the scarier they look. When I looked up my JC Penney work schedule for the next 2 weeks (including a 3:45 am to 1:00 pm shift on Black Friday), my heart sank. I should be grateful for all the extra work hours (and resulting pay), especially when so many people are desperate for a job, but all I could think of was the break room tables loaded with baskets of potato chips & candy bars, with pans of brownies and plates of cookies... I remembered being desperate last year for fuel, any kind of fuel, and comfort, especially in the form of junk food...

I considered printing up my plan for how to handle the holidays this year and taping it to the inside of my locker door, but since my locker is on the bottom row, I'd have to hunker down to read it, thereby sticking my butt (smaller, but not tiny) into the narrow path between the lockers and the kitchenette, which is also the vital and well-traveled pathway to the vending machines and employee rest room.

So instead, I'm going to make multiple copies of the plan on index cards and tuck them into my purse, in my car, in my netbook case, on my bathroom mirror. After all, I'm 57 years old, with short term memory deficiencies. The other day at JCP I was helping 2 customers in the shoe department. I got out to the stockroom, climbed a 10 foot ladder, reached for a box of shoes, and suddenly thought, "Wait...is this the one who wants a size 8 pump in black, or the one who wants a size 9-1/2 boot in brown?"

Holiday Eating

Today is November 7th. I survived Halloween and a minor incident with some evil candy corn, but the holiday season with all its social eating challenges looms on my horizon. Last year I had just started a new retail job, had little fill in my band, was struggling with untreated and undiagnosed fibromyalgia pain, lost my mother, and lost control of my eating during the holiday season. I responded to my unpredictable work schedule and my physical and emotional pain by using my old friend, Food. So I hurtled through potluck meals at work and church, and eating on the run, with my mouth open, cramming everything and anything I could grab into it. I couldn't seem to get or stay organized well enough to come up with an eating plan and stick with it, but planning is the #1 tool that helps me in social eating situations.

Thank goodness, I'm facing the 2010 holiday season with a well-filled band, medical issues under control, emotional issues that aren't as overwhelming, and greater mastery of my retail job now that in 2009. Here's my plan for the coming months:

1. I will not let myself get too hungry, especially before social events.
2. I will bring something healthy that I can eat to every potluck meal.
3. I will keep a supply of protein bars in my purse and my locker at work.
4. I will plan each day's meals in advance, commit them to my accountability partner every day,
and report to her the next day how that day's eating went.