The Checkup

Joan Salge Blake, a professor of nutrition at Boston University, offered some tips on how to avoid eating so much that it feels as if your belly might burst.

She advised that trimming fat from the meal while adding fiber and liquid (to fill you up fast and speed digestion) can go a long way toward avoiding the "agita" you feel after a large meal. As she noted in the Nov. 25 Eat, Drink and Be Healthy column, serving your meal in courses can help.

Start with a broth-based, vegetable-filled soup, then clear the table. Next up: a salad with low-fat dressing. By the time you clear that second course, everyone's bellies will have received signals from the brain (this takes 20 minutes) that they're already starting to feel satisfied, keeping folks from mindlessly devouring the rest of the meal.

-- Jennifer Huget

laura33 wrote:

Why is overdoing one meal a year deemed to be so horribly unacceptable? Must we be so obsessed with weight, with "perfect" everything, that we have to suck the joy out of one day of feasting? Why can't we celebrate without guilt, and eat in moderation the rest of the time?

I have two no-rules meals: Thanksgiving and Hanukkah (latkes, mmmmmmm). I want turkey, gravy, stuffing, potatoes, green beans and pie -- and crispy turkey skin, double yum. I will devote every inch of stomach space to those foods; I will savor them and enjoy them for all they're worth. And then the next day I will be back to salads (with turkey on top!) and treadmills.

No biggie.