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Keeping Your Diet on Track During the Holidays

No matter how much you expect to eat at Grandma's, stick with your regular meals. Skipping breakfast and barely eating lunch will only make you more ravenous and prone to overeating at a holiday party. Just because your holiday agenda involves sitting around, telling stories, and eating doesn't mean you have to stop your regular exercise routine. The more active you are around the holiday season, the better you'll feel, and hence, you'll be more likely to feed your body in a healthy manner. What's more, exercise doesn't have to mean hitting a gym: you can do little things such as parking your car a little further from your destination, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or taking a quick walk around the block.

It's also important to be selective with your food choices. Survey the spread before you dive in and eat everything. Figure out what you really want, and then monitor everything else so you can balance it out. Don't deprive yourself ! If you want a piece of cake, have some, but remember that quality is more important than quantity.

Follow these simple holiday menus to help cut your calories and fat intake down from one holiday to the next. Keep in mind that the nutritional info was based on real-life, generous holiday portions.

Easter

The spirit of Easter is all about new beginnings. It's the onset of spring; there are flowers blooming and birds returning. As the days start to get longer and the sunshine gets warmer, it's time to shed those winter doldrums, peel off those big winter sweaters, and add some spring to your step—and your meal.

Your Easter meal doesn't have to be heavy and filling; it can be light and airy, like the holiday. Just revamp your traditional menu, and lose half the calories and one third of the fat. Besides, it'll leave a little room for those sweet marshmallow chicks.

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Passover

One of the oldest and most continuously celebrated holidays, Passover commemorates the Jewish exodus from Egypt after years of suffering and slavery. It is the tradition of the Jewish people to remember their ancestors with a big meal! Well, with a few minor changes to the menu, you can still indulge in Passover with all the taste and a lot less fat and calories. What's more, the extra fiber in the healthier version can help to declog all of that matzo meal.

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Fourth of July

Think fun-filled barbecues with your friends and busting out your summer attire. It's about soaking up the sun and being comfortable in your body, not feeling bloated and so heavy that you'd rather cover up and stay inside. The best way to keep yourself looking good and feeling groovy is to cut down on those heavy, high-fat foods and splurge on the fresh fruits and veggies that are in season. The traditional menu has a whopping 2,099 calories and 116 grams of fat, but the healthier menu has 985 fewer calories and 40 percent of the fat—so you can say good-bye to that beer gut and greet some great abs without feeling the least bit deprived.

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Thanksgiving

It's supposed to be about giving thanks and feeling grateful for all the positive things in your life. But come on, we know it's really about the fine art of American gluttony: mounds of turkey, rich gravy, starchy stuffing, cranberry sauce, four kinds of potatoes, veggies soaked in butter and oil, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and going in for round two a few hours after your stomach finally settles. Then, there are all those leftovers: Thanksgiving eating goes on for days!

Keep your family traditions and indulge. If you make minor alterations in your meal, you'll feel a whole lot better in the morning—and maybe even have the energy to make it outside for your own game of football instead of just watching it on the tube.

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With Thanksgiving leftovers coming out of your ears, here are some creative ways to have seconds and thirds:

Ready-Made Menu

Hanukkah

For the kids, the Festival of Lights is all about the presents, but for us adults, it seems to be all about the scrumptiously fried food (and of course, commemorating the Maccabean victory over Antiochus of Syria and how the Maccabees created a miracle and lit the menorah with a drop of oil that lasted for eight long nights). Today, we're a lot more nutritionally enlightened; we realize that fried foods aren't a good base for any meal, holiday or not. With a few minor adjustments to the traditional menu, you can take the healthy route, cutting 644 calories and your fat in half, and still get your potato latkes. (A Hanukkah without them would be sacrilegious, wouldn't it?)

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Kwanzaa

< ahref="/kwanzaa/family-traditions/32933.html">Kwanzaa, from the African language Kiswahili, means first fruits of the harvest— contrary to how we celebrate this holiday, with foods that are high in fat and low in fruit content. As this is a relatively new holiday, now is the time to start some healthy traditions and indulge in a festive meal (with 400 fewer calories and 35 percent of the fat) that's good for you, too.

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Christmas

With homemade Christmas cookies, creamy veggie dishes, and what always seems like 24 hours of nibbling, you'll be praying to open up boxes of oversized sweaters from under the tree. What better way to hide all the pounds we tend to pack on during the chilly season of decked halls and tons of parties? Well, you can still splurge on warm, rich comfort foods that are good for the soul, but if you lighten up your menu just a tad, you'll be indulging in yummy eats that are good for the arteries, too. See, it can still look a lot like Christmas with almost half the calories and 20 percent of the fat!

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Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Total Nutrition © 2005 by Joy Bauer. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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