- Moderation is the mantra to enjoy festive food. Eat fatty foods, sweets, and other fried snacks in small amounts. Instead of loading your plate to the brim, just take a few—maybe one or two—items and eat them slowly and gradually.
- Always eat sweets or fatty foods as individual items and not along with meals so the calories are well distributed throughout the day.
- Preparing traditional sweets at home during festivals is always healthy. Use low-fat ingredients like low-fat milk and other dairy products. Use wheat flour instead of maida. Limit the use of sugar and ghee. Sweeteners like honey, jaggery, and dates are healthy alternatives to make sweets, and avoid using khoa, maida, excess ghee, and sugar. You can also use sugar-free substitutes in moderation. Adding rose petals also makes sweets attractive. Shrikhand, kheer, phirni, doodhi halwa, gajar halwa, sandesh, fruit salad, and pudding are known to be relatively healthier options.
- Since you are already consuming sugar in sweets, cut down sugar in tea and coffee.
- There are various alternatives available in the market for sweets and other delicacies; choose the ones that are sugar-free, fruit-based, and lower in fat.
- Prefer dry fruits and nuts over sweets.
- For frying, you can use peanut, rice bran, sunflower, or canola oil.
- Eat your breakfast, lunch, and dinner on time and include fiber-rich options like more fruits, vegetables, salads, sprouts, whole grains, oatmeal, daliya, and brown rice. The fiber from these takes care of stomach satiety and also manages hunger pangs. Thus, it helps to control bingeing on unhealthy snacks.
- Plan your meals. When you are partying at night, eat less throughout the day. But don’t starve yourself.
- Drinking plenty of lukewarm water or green tea (without sugar) will help perk up your metabolism and ease the digestion of high-calorie snacks. It also helps to alleviate false hunger.
- Whenever you indulge in fried food items or sweets, try to cut down the consumption of carbohydrates in the form of chapati and rice, and add more salads. Have them as separate meals rather than with main meals, and try to have them in the first half of the day.
- Avoid eating overly spicy food, heavy meals, and late-night dinners, as they lead to acidity and bloating problems during the festivals.
- If you are planning a late-night card party with family and friends, eat an early dinner. Keep healthy snacks to binge on like salads, popcorn, steamed corn, boiled kala chana, or carrots and cucumbers with curd dips.
- Have grilled, steamed, baked, or roasted dishes instead of fried ones.
