A collection of holiday nutrition advice to get you to January 1st

Like perhaps many of you, I follow a variety of blogs - many of which are food, nutrition and fitness based. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, I decided to provide a few great posts I have seen over the last few days. I am hoping this will give you some great advice all in one place. Happy reading and Happy Holidays!

Delicious & Healthy Recipes from 2015

Looking for something to serve that you won't feel guilty about? These are some great dishes that make my mouth water just reading the recipes.

Low-Fat Egg Nog Recipes

Love egg nog (like me), but don't love the calories that come with it? Check out this blog for some easy recipes to lighten up this favorite holiday drink.

Christmas Brunch Recipe!

I mainly like this post for the first recipe listed - healthy, fast and delicious! Check it out for an easy option while you are busy focusing on Christmas dinner prep.

11 Tips to Stay Fit this Holiday Season

While food choices make a huge difference, making sure you get up and move contributes to a successful holiday season as well. I love this post because it provides practical and creative tips to work in some fitness in between all of the eating and conversing. Check it out!

Your Nutrition Coach,

RDKate

Picture source

Athletes: Keep these 3 things in mind as you enter the holiday season!

As the holidays approach, I get a lot of nervous athletes in my office. Some worry about undesirable body comp changes, some worry that turning down decadent options will offend family members...and the list goes on. What can you do to calm your anxiety as the holidays creep up? Here are 3 key steps:

1. Right now, determine where you want to be - both physically and mentally - in the new year. What does that mean you need to do with your eating this month? Having a goal to commit to will make you much more successful when you approach the dessert table.

Check out these easy Thanksgiving swaps to save on calories!

Eating healthy on Thanksgiving doesn't have to difficult. While the day is traditionally filled with way too many calories, help yourself or the athlete in your life by making these easy swaps. I wrote this post a couple of years back and decided to update and re-post because it is a good reminder of simple tips and swaps to save big on calories without sacrificing flavor. 

Turkey
Baste with low-sodium/low-fat broth or olive oil. Season with herbs and spice. While the white meat is lower in fat, the dark meat is higher in vitamins and minerals. So a little of each is okay. If your family likes to deep-fry your turkey, don't eat the skin to omit a good portion of saturated fat.

Mashed Potatoes
Substitute trans-fat free and olive oil based tub margarine for butter, sub non-fat plain Greek yogurt for sour cream and sub non- or low-fat milk for cream/whole milk. Cut the added salt by half. Consider sweet potatoes versus white, which are lower in calories and higher in vitamins and minerals. If you go the sweet potato route, spice to your heart's delight but go easy on the brown sugar or marshmallows where calories can add up quickly. Try keeping them plain enough that you can actually taste the potato. When mashing, leave in some of the potato skins, which is where most of the fiber lies.

How to be a professional triathlete with celiac - tips and tricks

This week, I am so excited to interview my good friend and professional triathlete, Robin Pomeroy. I met Robin many years ago when she first started triathlon. She has since developed into an amazing triathlete. What makes Robin so impressive is that she juggles her training while fueling gluten-free. Robin was diagnosed with celiac in 2004. Here are her thoughts on living, training and competing gluten-free and what she thinks about the whole "gluten-free diet" fad. 

First, tell me about yourself.

I aspire to take triathlon to the highest level I am capable of. I have a background in competitive swimming, bike racing, and running. I enjoy putting all three sports together now to compete in triathlon. I love the Olympic distance race, but have started racing the half distance this year as well. The two distances are unique and very different to train for, but I enjoy both.

I continue to work as well, and absolutely enjoy my career outside of racing. It is hard to juggle the demands of work and triathlon sometimes, but it keeps me continuously occupied. I thrive on a busy schedule; however, it’s important to keep a healthy balance of everything.

2015 marks my first year competing as a professional. I have launched a website, so you can follow me here: www.robinpomeroy.com, or at either of my social media accounts: Facebook or Twitter 

Tell me a little about how you were first diagnosed with celiac?

I found out I had Celiac about 10 years ago in 2004/2005. I was a serious high school and collegiate runner who suffered a femoral neck stress fracture that was 80% of the way across the bone - almost causing me to have a hip replacement. Thankfully, it was caught and I had an emergency surgery to pin it up. About a year later, I fractured the other femoral neck, but did not need surgery for this one. Between these fractures, I had blood work and other tests done that revealed some major deficiencies. I was anemic, amenorrheic, osteopenic, and low in many other vitamins and minerals. The combination of these deficiencies and the serious fracture(s) I had led my primary care doctor to refer me to a gastroenterologist, who in turn wanted to test for Celiac Disease. I am thankful that my doctors were insightful enough to test for Celiac Disease because it was not as commonly diagnosed in the U.S. back in 2004.

5 Things You Should Do Before Your Next Marathon

Marathon training takes time and commitment. If you are asking your body to do this type of training, you must fuel it well. Here are 5 things you should do NOW before you step on the starting line.

1. Increase your fuel to cover your training
Every day, you need to cover for what you run. This is not just during the run (though that is important too), but at meals and snacks outside of your runs as well. Many runners do not eat enough to cover for their training, which makes it hard for the body to recover and prepare for the next run. This can lead to injuries or illness during training. A rule of thumb is that you burn about 100 kcal per mile you run. Add this number to a base of 1500-1800 kcal daily for metabolic functions and daily activities outside of running. This is the total you should be eating each day.