Getting Back on Track by Aliza Beer, MS RD

Getting Back on Track After the Holidays

by Aliza beer MS, rD, cDN

Pesach is an incredible holiday, filled with family, memories, and great food. Holidays are a difficult time to stick to healthy eating and exercise. Our routines are “invaded” by non-stop food and limited ability to stay active.

If you couldn’t stick to clean eating over Pesach, don’t give up hope. Instead of feeling disappointed, give yourself a little grace to get back into your routine. With these tips, you’ll feel like yourself in no time!

1. Don’t bring the holiday home

with you: When Pesach is over, we need to leave all the snacks and desserts behind and settle back into our regular routines. A great tip is that if the food isn’t in your home, you are less likely to eat it. Instead of surrounding yourself with temptations, pack up all the food that isn’t the healthiest and consider donating it to a food bank. 2. Focus on the positive: Instead of fixating on giving up the French fries, sugar, or white flour, focus on the healthy and delicious foods you can eat. Spring is here, and there are so many delicious fruits like peaches, plums, nectarines, watermelon, and papaya. It is also a great time to make fresh, vibrant salads. Spring and summer allow you to be more creative with your foods and prepare meals that include lots of crisp produce. Realigning your brain will make the next few weeks significantly more feasible. 3. Get organized: First thing’s first, start preparing for the new week. This can include compiling a grocery list, a meal plan, or a workout schedule. This will ensure that you are prepared to have a successful week and get back on track. Your week will be much easier when there’s a thought-out game plan for meals and fitness. Meal plans and grocery lists should include a lot of fresh produce, lean proteins, and whole grains. If jumping back into your usual exercise routine sounds difficult, start with something small and attainable and move up from there. 4. Set yourself up for success: Having a refrigerator stocked with nutritious foods will set you up for a productive few weeks getting back into your normal routine. Making an online grocery order, if available, is a great way to ensure you have everything you need, while resisting the temptation to buy unhealthy foods while you’re in the grocery store. If you prefer to do your grocery shopping in-person, go with a list so you stick to it and avoid buying unnecessary foods. Great foods to stock up on include cut up fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains. 5. Get moving: Getting back into a normal exercise schedule after the holidays is important for feeling like yourself. Remember, don’t think of this a punishment for the food you’ve eaten over the holiday – look at it as an opportunity to feel energized. Find exercises you enjoy to elevate your heart rate, improve digestion, boost your mood, and aid in weight management. 6. Spring is officially here, and it’s a great time of year to start a workout routine, start walking, or begin biking. To start a routine that is realistic to maintain, begin slowly. Aiming to get in some movement for 20 minutes each day is a great steppingstone to incorporating exercise into your lifestyle. 7. Hydrate: Increasing your water intake over the next few weeks will help curb hunger and flush out all the food you ate over Pesach. Ditch the soda and aim for plain water or fruit-infused water if it is difficult for you to drink enough throughout the day. Buying a fun water bottle with drinking goals on it or setting an alarm every hour reminding you to drink are a few ways to keep you hydrated. 8. Stick to simple, clean foods: Following the holidays, aim to cook simple, plain foods, void of sauces, sugar, and other additives. Open your spice drawer and get creative by using different spices to make your meals flavorful and different. People usually gravitate toward coating their foods in sauces because they think it’s a quick and easy way to make a tasty meal. Spice combinations, though, are just as quick and flavorful, and you aren’t eating extra calories that you don’t need.

Prepare breakfasts like yogurt and berries, smoothies, or eggs. Snacks should include fresh fruits and vegetables, and lunches should be a salad, a tuna sandwich on whole- grain bread, or a vegetable-based soup. Dinner is usually the meal where people consume the most unnecessary additives. Fire up your grill and make some grilled vegetables, chicken or fish, and a whole-grain carb like a sweet potato. 9. Try for more fish dinners: If the majority of your meals have been meat over the last two weeks, it’s time to focus on incorporating fish-based meals. Fish is easy to prepare and cooks very quickly. Fish is low-calorie and also an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids, which help keep you full and satiated. A study done on the benefits of fish found that eating fish can also promote faster weight loss.

There are so many types of fish to try and many different ways to prepare them. Salmon, tuna, halibut, sea bream, bronzini, and tilapia are a few of my favorites. If you aren’t a fish person, maybe start with trying to have salmon or tuna once a week. If you don’t enjoy a classic piece of fish, perhaps think about preparing it differently. There are a multitude of spice blends made specifically for fish and cooking methods include poached, grilled, baked, and broiled fish.

Burgers are a great way to start introducing fish into your diet. Most local grocery stores sell tuna and salmon burgers without added flours or starches, or you can even make your own and store them in the freezer for easier use.

10. Challenge yourself to eat nothing

from a bag for a week: After Pesach, a holiday filled with snacks and processed

food, challenge yourself to only eat fresh fruits, vegetables, and proteins. This is a fun challenge you can do with a friend or family member, and it will certainly help you get on track right away. Your digestive system will have an opportunity to rest and recharge.

11. Add a salad or extra vegetables

to your dinner each night: Vegetables are filled with fiber, which satiates our appetite and keeps us from making the wrong choices. Starting off your meal with a salad is a good way to fill up and prevent you from overeating during the rest of the meal. Roasted or grilled vegetables, paired with a lean protein, will help you get full quickly and control your hunger. 12. Meal prep: I know that for many of us the thought of cooking more is daunting. Instead of having to cook dinner every night, do as much meal prep as you can earlier in the week so that the fridge is filled with nutritious foods that you and your family can eat. Remember, we naturally choose to eat what is quick and is already prepared. Instead of being tempted to grab a bag of chips to snack on, fill the fridge with cut-up fruits and vegetables instead. Cooking a few lean proteins and roasting a bunch of vegetables early in the week will ensure you have clean meals all week long.

To make sure you and your family are eating healthfully after Pesach, do as much meal-preparation as possible. If your refrigerator is fully stocked with cut-up produce and clean meals, then

this is what your family will eat. Meal ideas can include unsweetened yogurt with berries, fresh omelets with vegetables, salads with a lean protein, and sheet pan dinners that include a protein, a vegetable, and a carb. 13. Shift your dinner earlier: Over Pesach, we ate our dinners super late. For the weeks following Pesach, aim to eat dinner ideally before 7pm each night. The later it is in the day, the more our digestive systems slow down. Eating late can also cause us to overeat because we’ve felt hungry for several hours and are finally sitting down to eat. You will wake up feeling so much better if you stop eating several hours before going to bed.

14. Make sleep a priority: We’ve had many late nights over the last 10 days between sedarim and extra family time. Restful sleep is key for your overall health and weight management. Better sleep can improve your mood, boost your immune system, increase your exercise performance, and in general make you more productive. Lack of sleep can increase appetite by shifting our hormones and make us more likely to eat unhealthy foods. It leads to metabolic dysregulation, increased blood sugar, and oxidative stress. Sleep is a game changer for weight loss.

Getting back on track after the holidays may be challenging, but it is certainly realistic. Jumping into a routine that includes planned out nutritious meals and an exercise routine are the two most helpful tips. Staying hydrated, getting adequate sleep, loading up on vegetables, and sticking to simple foods will ensure you get back into your routine quickly and efficiently. It may be difficult to switch to leaner meals and ditch the processed foods; however, those are imperative for your health and wellbeing. Now is the perfect time to begin a healthier lifestyle, leaving the Pesach pounds behind and embracing summer health.

Your week will be much easier when there’s a thought-out game plan for meals and fitness.

Aliza Beer is a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in nutrition. She has a private practice in Cedarhurst, NY. Patients’ success has been featured on the Dr. Oz show. Aliza can be reached at alizabeer@ gmail.com, and you can follow her on Instagram at @alizabeer.