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Smart Summer Eating Strategies
How to eat healthy in the summertime
BY ROSLYN FRANKEN
We tend to think that it’s easier to eat
healthy and stay fit in the summer compared
with other seasons. Perhaps this is
because with the warmer outdoor temperatures,
we’re typically more active and
there is a greater abundance of fresh
fruits and vegetables available to us.
However, when it comes to eating
healthy and staying in shape, summertime
has its own unique set of challenges.
For example, our summers are typically
filled with more family and social occasions
and special celebrations including
weddings, graduations, barbeques and
vacations, where excessive food temptations
abound. It is, therefore, important
to monitor our choices and portion sizes
and ensure we get sufficient physical
activity to help burn off any extra calories
consumed. In this article, we’ll look at
some smart eating strategies to help keep
you healthy and fit throughout the summer,
even with all the extra socializing
and special occasions.
Avoid arriving over-hungry at parties,
barbeques or other social gatherings.
This is a bad trap into which many
of us fall. We think that if we’re going to
a late afternoon or evening wedding or
barbeque, we’ll hardly eat all day so
that we can indulge ourselves at the
event. The problem is that when you
arrive over-hungry, you are automatically
setting yourself up not just to
indulge, but to over-indulge. When
you’re over-hungry, you want to eat
everything in sight. it is harder to resist
temptation and make smart choices
instead. At weddings, for example,
you’ll likely over-indulge on hors-d’oeuvres
and be more than partially full by
the time the main course is served. A
smarter eating strategy, for example,
would be to eat proper meals throughout
the day and then drink a full glass
of water with a small snack of some
fresh fruit and yogourt about 30 minutes
before attending the event. This
Ottawa Page 32 Due West/Due East Magazine • Summer 2008