10 Must-Have Items for Your Healthier, More Joyful Holiday Table

In this article:

• It’s common for people who are trying to make healthier lifestyle choices to worry about holiday meals, turning what should be a joyful celebration into a stressful conflict between staying on track and feeling deprived, or indulging and feeling guilty or bloated. 
• Focus on what you can have instead of what you can’t, so you can enjoy the meal and the company more. 
• By serving nutritious options, you can ensure that you can fill your plate guilt-free as you participate in holiday festivities. 
• Include a favorite treat if there’s something you look forward to all year. 
• Lark can help you stay motivated and on track during the holiday season and every day with 24/7 coaching towards your health and weight loss goals.

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Holiday meals can be challenging if you’ve been making more nutritious eating choices for weight loss and health, but you can remove conflict and guilt. When you focus on healthy foods that are on your plan, instead of worrying about foods that you “shouldn’t” eat, it’s easier to enjoy the occasion and eat better. Here are some nutritious foods to include on your holiday menu so you can fill your plate guilt-free during celebrations.

1. Vegetable Platter

Having low-calorie, high-fiber foods to munch on is especially important if your celebration starts before everyone sits at the table. Choosing raw vegetables for cheese, nuts, fried appetizers, and finger foods with dough or puff pastry can reduce calories by several hundred before you sit down for the meal. Choose your favorites like celery, baby carrots, sugar snap peas, grape tomatoes, mini bell peppers, and broccoli florets. Include a low-calorie dip like salsa or tomato and pepper ezme.

2. Hearty Chunky Mushroom Soup

A chunky, broth-based soup can be satisfying, delicious, and good for appetite control. Savoring a bowl can reduce appetite and help you eat fewer calories overall. Broth-based mushroom soup can feel special on a holiday, but it’s low in calories and high in nutrients. For a richer version that can start your meal right, try low-fat creamy mushroom soup. Make soup a day before to avoid stress on the day of your big meal.

3. Roast Turkey or Salmon

Skinless roasted turkey is a lean source of protein. It’s lower in sodium than ham and lower in fat than duck. It’s also easy to cook. If desired, simply stuff the turkey, place it in an oven-safe bag with your preferred herbs and vegetables, and follow the cooking instructions. For a meatless meal or a kosher meal if you’re serving dairy products, roast fish instead. Choose a whole fish for a more elegant presentation, or fillets or steaks for easier handling.

4. Sweet Potato Wedges

Sweet potatoes or yams can be so sweet, creamy, and delicious that you don’t have to blend them with butter, cream, and sugar to enjoy them. Try cutting sweet potatoes into wedges, tossing them with olive oil and your choice of sea salt, nutmeg, rosemary, and cinnamon, and baking them. If you prefer a casserole, try a more nutritious version. 

5. Roasted Vegetables

Vegetables can fill up your plate in style when you choose seasonal vegetables and add seasonings like balsamic vinegar, thyme, and other herbs, spices like pepper and cumin, or lemon juice to taste. Onions, brussels sprouts, carrots, green beans, and beets are delicious at this time of year, so choose your favorites. Here are tips for roasting vegetables and ideas for seasoning them.

6. A Simple Green Salad

With so much cooked, heavy food, a light green salad can add welcome brightness. Serve a large bowl of greens, like spinach, mixed greens, or romaine lettuce, tossed with sliced cucumber and grape tomatoes. On the side, place various dressings, including a healthy vinaigrette for yourself with olive oil and mustard. Have bowls of possible add-ins for people to try, like sunflower seeds, cranberries, chopped or sliced hard-boiled eggs, and feta cheese.

7. A Fruit Plate

Some sweet, refreshing fruit can be a nice way to finish your meal. Choose fresh fruit instead of pies and cheesecake, or use fruit to fill up your plate alongside a sliver of your favorite desserts. Fruit baskets can also make great gifts for hosts and hostesses, with seasonal choices including Asian pears, Bosc pears, apples, clementines, pineapple, and persimmons. 

8. A Hot Drink Bar

A hot drink bar isn’t just a fun attraction where you can make your dream drink and mingle with other guests. It’s a place where you can make a festive beverage that’s hydrating and low in calories. Offer hot water, decaf and regular coffee, and a variety of green, black, and herbal tea bags. Cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise, and mint leaves can provide flavor and pizazz without many calories. Ground cinnamon and unsweetened cocoa powder are other options. For a low-calorie creamy option, have oat milk or unsweetened almond milk available. For guests who aren’t concerned about calories or sugar, flavor syrups, instant cocoa mixes, and brown or white sugar may be welcome.

9. A Centerpiece

A pretty table can make the entire meal feel more special. It can remind you to enjoy the company, think about what you appreciate about the holiday, and eat more slowly to honor the special occasion. Try a simple bouquet of flowers, a couple of candles, or a decoration with pinecones and winter berries. Make sure it’s low enough so guests can see each other across the table. 

10. Gratitude Cards

Another non-edible must-have, gratitude cards can make every guest feel loved and appreciated. If you’re the host, consider having a personalized gratitude card at each person’s place when they sit down; include 1-2 reasons why you are grateful for them in your life. You can also have blank cards and a pen at each place and ask guests to fill out their blank cards expressing gratitude for each other.

11. Your Favorite Holiday Treat

Many of us look forward to a particular food or beverage all year. It may be a family recipe, or something that’s been on your holiday table since childhood. Whatever it is, identify it beforehand, look forward to it, and enjoy a reasonable amount of it among your other healthy choices. 

How Lark Can Help

Holidays should be about appreciation, love, and honoring your body, but not about deprivation. Lark can help you plan nutritious and joyful meals. Your Lark coach is available 24/7 for encouragement, nutrition and physical activity coaching, and habit tracking. Lark can help you make healthy choices and establish habits that fit into your lifestyle so you can lose weight and keep it off with or without GLP-1 medications. 

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