10 Healthy Food Swaps To Stay Fit During The Festive Season

Festive season: These simple swaps can help you prevent weight gain

Festive season is the marry time where you open your arms to eating sweets and all the delicacies that come our way. Having said this, healthy eating is often off for a toss during festivals, be it any small or big festival, sweets are a must in the Indian household. What can be a more satisfying gift than gifting yourself a healthy festive season, without missing out on all the festive fun and eating. For all the health watchers out there, here are some healthy swaps to treat yourself with a healthy and conscious free festive season.

Festive season: Healthy swaps you must try

1. Try roasting instead of frying

It is difficult to resist tempting fired foods, especially during the festival season. Are you also one of those who avoided fried foods throughout the year? Here's a solution for you. Roast all those food items that you would initially have thought to fry. Roasted foods don't only taste good but also comes with some promising health benefits as well.

Choose roasting instead of deep frying to avoid consumption of too many calories
Photo Credit: iStock

2. Prefer red wine instead of other alcoholic beverages

Have planned to have hard liquor this festive season? Switch to a glass of red wine which has fewer calories as compared to the other alcoholic beverages. In addition to this red wine contains resveratrol, which is an antioxidant that helps to prevent damage to the blood vessels and also helps in reducing bad cholesterol.

3. Try sugar substitutes

Sweet dish is a must on the plate for festivals and there is no count on how many. Gorging on the delicious sweets could surely affect your health, making you prone to weight gain. So, switch to using jaggery for this festive season instead of sugar. Use foods that give natural sweeting flavours like dates, anjeer and saffron.

Also read: 6 Tips To Prevent Weight Gain, Headache, Fatigue And Indigestion During Diwali

4. Replace the heavy creams

Have something different for the festivals this time. Make room for some mashed avocadoes instead of keeping those heavy creams on the dinner tables.

5. Introduce yogurt-based dips

Swap that bowl of sour cream you used to have to dip your chips with Greek yogurt-based dips that are lower in calories and fat and doesn't take a toll on your health. Moreover, Greek yogurt is also a good source of calcium, protein and probiotics.

6. Swap the white and milk chocolate

Who doesn't like to have a whole bar of chocolate to themselves? But, eating too much put you in pressure of gaining weight. Try switching to dark chocolate this season rather that gifting white and milk chocolates. Dark chocolates contain cocoa which have antioxidants and helps in prevent excessive weight gain. Viola! marry time.

Also read: Dark Chocolate Benefits: Here's Why You Should Include Cacao-Rich Dark Chocolate In Your Diet

7. Swap the salty nuts with raw nuts

Not only the sweet tooth needs monitoring, salt carving too needs to be watched out. Cut on the salt intake, swap the salted nuts with the raw ones as they are jampacked with protein, fiber and heart healthy fats.

Nuts are a powerhouse of essential nutrients
Photo Credit: iStock

8. Swap candies with fruits

You can opt for fruits instead of latching on to the candies. Fruits are loaded with essential nutrients and several health benefits. These will also satisfy your sweet tooth.

9. Can't resist the sweet tooth?

If you also fall a victim of sweet tooth, switch the traditional sweets like gulab jamuns, rasgullas with some fruit salad. You can also opt of eating shrikhand made of low-fat milk.

Also read: Make These Age-Old Traditional Immunity-Boosters A Part Of Your Diet This Winter

10. Prepare sweets at home

Instead of buying sweets for the festivals, try preparing them at home healthy substitutes of the ingredients. Some of the options you can try are- coconut barfi/ladoo, ghia katli, energy balls with dry fruits, carrot cake and whole grain cookies.

(Garima Goyal is a Ludhiana-based dietician)

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