Holiday Planning OR The Best Defense is a Good Offense

Everybody had enough turkey? Okay, onward to Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, Festivus, or whatever the heck else you might celebrate to make this dreary time of year bearable! Time to think. Time to plan. Not our shopping (me, I've already done most of mine online; somuch easier than slogging through malls.) I'm talking about the food, of course!

Forget the Most Wonderful Time of the Year -- this is the Most Sugary Time of the Year. Between cookies in the break room at work, candy canes at the dry cleaner, hot-and-cold-running parties, gallons of eggnog, hot spiced rum at the nail salon, cookie exchanges among your friends -- all of this before the actual Christmas Day chocolate-cookie-coffee cake-special dessert extravaganza -- it is way, way too easy to throw caution to the winds and just ignore nutrition till the official January 1 start of Diet Season.

But don't! You'll regret it. Readers just like you tell me so. Many of the falling-off-the-wagon stories I've gotten recount how well a low carber was doing till he or she decided to loosen up for the holidays -- and never did recommit. The weight came back, along with the fatigue, the mood swings, the high blood pressure, you name it. Invariably, they rue the decision to "Lighten up! It's the holidays!

So give the matter a bit of thought. Planning ahead can help you reach the New Year with your waistline, health, and resolve intact. Too, holidays bring joy, but for many of us they also bring stress; eating right, keeping our blood sugar stable and our energy high, is a powerful tactic for sailing smoothly through the chaos while enjoying the cheer. (Might I add that keeping the kids' blood sugar stable might make for less family drama? Just a thought.)

First, and most importantly: I cannot caution you too strongly about deciding "It's the Holidays!," giving yourself license to indulge in every sugar-bomb that crosses your path between now and January 2nd. You and I both know that between now and then you will be exposed to more sweets than you should eat in a year, much less a month. So THINK! Which Indulgences are really worth it? Which are just unconscious force of holiday habit?

I've long since reached the point where even former favorite Christmas treats don't appeal anymore, but you may not be there yet -- and indeed, may never be. However, if you give it some thought, you'll realize that some treats appeal to you a lot more than others. I never cared much about candy canes, eggnog, traditional English steamed pudding, fruitcake, fancy stollen and other such coffee cakes, or gingerbread men, and I long ago lost my taste for milk chocolate. They're just part of the Christmas scenery. Even thirteen years back, when I was a baby low carber, none of these things would tempt me to an Indulgence.

On the other hand, I always loved my mother's Christmas cookies, her homemade oatmeal-molasses bread, and our family's traditional Christmas dessert, chocolate bread pudding with hard sauce. If I were having a Christmas Day Indulgence, I might well have a few cookies, a slice of bread, and a serving of dessert.

On the other other hand, I would not munch on cookies or eat oatmeal-molasses bread every day I was at my mom's house -- we used to go for as long as five days; that's a lot of Indulging.

So think about which traditional treats matter to you, and which are just there. Remember: Never waste an Indulgence on something that isn't exactly what you want.

If, indeed, you want to Indulge over the holidays, it is also a very good idea to pick a couple of specific occasions -- certainly no more than three -- on which you are Indulging -- say, the annual family cookie exchange, a holiday party given by a friend who is a phenomenal cook, and Christmas Day. Then get it through your head that those are your Indulgence occasions; other than at those times, you are not eating carb-y stuff just because "It's the Holidays!"

However, this strategy only works if you do not have an addictive reaction to carbs -- something only you can know. Can you have a few cookies at the cookie exchange, and NOT bring home a plateful that you then devour over the next forty eight hours? Can you have a serving of your family's traditional Christmas dessert without getting up the next day and finishing it off for breakfast, then going on to eat all the candy from the kids' stockings? Be ruthlessly honest with yourself. If a supposedly controlled Indulgence will, in reality, throw you into a tailspin, it's best to simply stick to low carbing even on the most special occasions. After all, if you were a recovering alcoholic you wouldn't figure you could just have a couple of glasses of wine at Christmas dinner, would you? (I hope not!)

Whether you decide to Indulge or not, you will need strategies for resisting the piles of Christmas Crappe around you. Your best bet is to have low carb treats on hand at all times. Consider:

* Swiss Miss Diet Hot Chocolate Mix. At only 4 grams of carb per serving, this is much lower carb than the Swiss Miss No Sugar Added, though I haven't a clue why. It's darned tasty, too. Keep a few envelopes in your desk or carry them in your purse or attache case, and you can have a chocolate treat wherever you can get hot water.

* If you're a coffee fan, buy some sugar-free coffee flavoring syrups. DaVinci, Monin and Torani all make sugar-free syrups. A shot of hazelnut or caramel in a cup of fresh-brewed coffee, with a good slug of heavy cream in it, makes for a treat that will pick you up without dropping you flat an hour later.

* If you're a fan of Irish Cream liqueur -- which is woefully sugary -- get a bottle of sugar-free Irish Cream flavored syrup. A shot of Irish Cream syrup, a shot of cream, and a shot of Irish Whisky makes a great, easy simulacrum of Bailey's. Just the thing for making merry!

* Keep sugar-free chocolate on hand. I love Dove's Dark sugar-free, both the plain and the chocolate mint varieties. (They also have chocolate raspberry.) And Reese's sugar-free peanut butter cups are a staple in my house. Jimmy Moore'ssugar-free/maltitol free chocolate raspberry bars are excellent. My beloved local gourmet/international/health food grocery,Sahara Mart, carries sugar-free dark chocolate covered coffee beans, which are my idea of ambrosia. Many fancy chocolate shops will also have some sugar-free selections. Don't over-indulge, or you'll embarrass yourself at parties! But keeping a little sugar-free chocolate on hand can really shore up the ol' willpower. Or won't power, as the case may be.

* Another good choice is sugar-free instant pudding mix. Made with milk this has 8 grams of carb per serving; you can make it with half heavy cream, half water to drop that lower, if you like. I add a heaping tablespoon or two of unsweetened cocoa powder to make it more chocolate-y and less sweet.

* You could go to the link at the left side of this page and buy some sugar-free chocolate chips, you know! They come complete with a recipe from yours truly -- here's the recipe. You could also make these by chopping up sugar-free dark chocolate bars in your food processor, which is what I did before Carb Smart had sugar free chocolate chips. But the chips are a whole lot easier!

This is getting way too long, and I need to cook supper -- something other than turkey tonight! I'll tackle parties soon.