How to Eat Less Sugar This Holiday Season

Cookies sprinkled with colorful sugar crystals, warm apple pie with its perfectly flaky crust, and dark chocolate truffles filled with golden caramel are all part of the joy of the holiday season.

Desserts around the holidays bring people together.  

They represent sharing and celebration.

They can even serve as cheerful reminders of when you were a kid.

So why can they leave you feeling guilty or even uncomfortable and unhealthy when the New Year comes around?

It’s because of the amount of sugar that is consumed, not necessarily the dessert itself. It’s the thought “I shouldn’t have eaten all that sugar,”

It can be really hard to avoid eating a lot of sugar around the holidays though. Those delightful desserts are everywhere.

They’re at home, work, the grocery store, restaurants, on social media, TV, you name it.

You can get overloaded with sweets starting from before Halloween to after New Year’s.

So how do you enjoy the desserts without suffering from the guilt, bloat, numerous “sugar crashes” or added pant size?

I’m going to share with you how to eat less sugar this holiday season, so you can experience all of the goodness, but without the negative effects.

• Related: How to Avoid Overeating During the Holidays
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Tip #1 Choose Your Favorite Dessert

ALL of the holiday desserts look delicious.

That makes it really difficult for your brain to resist.

If you try to say “no” in the moment, you’ll be fighting a very strong urge. If you decide ahead of time which desserts are worth it and which are not, you’ll find it easier to decline.

So instead of struggling with saying “no”, say “yes” ahead of time to which dessert (or two) is your favorite. Ask yourself which dessert you typically gain the most pleasure from eating, if you decide to do so.

This is a really great way to eat less sugar this holiday season, because you’re in control plus you still get to enjoy the holiday indulgences.

Once you choose your favorite holiday dessert or two, you’ll just stick with that. You’re setting a boundary, or limit, for yourself.

For example, if you love anything with peanut butter and chocolate, and you also love white chocolate truffles, then say “yes” to chocolate and peanut butter desserts and white chocolate truffles, and bypass anything else.

Or, if you love homemade sugar cookies, then say “yes” to the homemade sugar cookies. If the dessert isn’t a homemade sugar cookie, then you’ve already decided ahead of time that you’ll decline.

This is called constraint. Constraint is slightly different then restraint, although their definitions are almost the same in the multiple dictionaries that I looked at.

Constraint is defined as “something that controls what you do by keeping you within particular limits” in the Cambridge Dictionary. This dictionary defines the term “restraint” as “something that limits the freedom of someone or something, or prevents something from growing or increasing.”

Restraint is more like holding back or resistance. Constraint is more defining your limits ahead of time, so you stay within a certain boundary.

Constraint is key if you want to eat less sugar this holiday season. If you wanted to eat NO sugar this holiday season, then restraint would be my recommendation.

However, I don’t think anyone should have to completely avoid sugar, ever (unless of course they have a disease process in which sugar should be completely avoided).

*If you feel like you eat a lot of sugar in general, then this blog post can help….

• Related: Sugar Addiction and How to Stop the Cycle

I like constraint better when it comes to food because you aren’t resisting or avoiding completely. Instead, you are allowing yourself some freedom, while still maintaining some control.

This is very important when it comes to eating habits, as it makes sticking with a particular eating behavior much easier to do.

Tip #2 Decide Ahead of Time the Quantity

Now that you’ve decided which desserts you’ll indulge in, decide ahead of time, how much or how many you’ll have.

This is important because when you see or smell a dessert, your brain is going to want more. This is because of dopamine, a hormone that is commonly called the “pleasure hormone”, but is now more accurately referred to as the “reward hormone.”

It’s more so the expectation of the reward you’ll get when you eat the dessert, than the reward itself that increases dopamine.

So, when you think about how delicious a dessert is, and anticipate the pleasure on your taste buds, your dopamine level increases. This motivates you to eat (and keep eating) the dessert.

If you decide ahead of time how much of that pre-chosen dessert you’ll eat, you are using the part of your brain called the pre-frontal cortex. This is the “adult” part of the brain that has your future well-being in mind.

The more primitive part of the brain is kind of like the “child.” It is motivated by increasing your pleasure for the purpose of survival. Since you don’t need those homemade sugar cookies for survival, you don’t really want to be acting on your primitive brain alone.

You are much better off with the influence of the pre-frontal cortex.

So, what I would like you to do is if you are going to a holiday party on a Saturday evening, decide either the night before or the morning of, how many homemade sugar cookies you’ll have if they’re there.

Or, if you decided that your constraint was going to include two of your favorite desserts, then decide how much of the second dessert you’ll have if the sugar cookies aren’t available.

Just remember to do this at least several hours ahead of time (preferably when you aren’t hungry) and ideally 24 hours in advance. Doing it 24 hours in advance really allows for your pre-frontal cortex to be more in control and not really allowing the primitive brain to have a say.

Tip #3 Don’t Eat Desserts When You’re Really Hungry

Another way you can eat less sugar this holiday season is to fill up on healthier, more nutritious foods, so hunger doesn’t lead you to overload on the desserts.

When hunger signals occur, your brain wants to act on them. If dessert is available, you are more likely to reach for it than if you weren’t hungry.

If you’re very hungry, your primitive brain starts taking control, which if you recall, your primitive brain is focused on survival. Although you know you don’t need those chocolate chip cookies for survival, your primitive brain thinks you do.

Your “adult” brain, the pre-frontal cortex, knows you don’t need the cookies for survival, but has a tough time overruling when the primitive brain is in control.

So the best way to keep your pre-frontal cortex in control and not your primitive brain, is to make sure you don’t go to a holiday party or go near holiday desserts, when you’re really hungry.

That way, your primitive brain won’t decide that you need to load up on dessert in order to “survive,” and act upon that. This gives your pre-frontal cortex a chance to decide what and how much, you’ll eat.

• Related: 15 Healthy Snacking Habits to Start Right Now

Final Notes

When you allow yourself to enjoy the pleasure of holiday desserts, while having some control, you’ll feel much better about your decisions and the outcomes.

You’ll be able to avoid any negative emotions like guilt, disappointment, or shame that can be associated with eating more unhealthy food than you had intended to.

You’ll also be more likely to avoid any negative physical results such as weight gain, bloating, or “sugar crashes.” Over the long-term, you’ll probably also lessen your changes of chronic disease and obesity.

In addition, when you aren’t making it a habit of eating ALL the desserts, you will enjoy the limited desserts that you are treating yourself to even more.

You will really start to savor every bite of that indulgence, so your net reward is far greater than if you eat a bit of every dessert offered to you.

So start thinking about your favorite dessert or two, remember to decide ahead of time how much you’ll have, and don’t go to that holiday party really hungry.