My solution to this was two-fold: Take the party to a restaurant when you can -or- if you have to cook at home for guests, cook the good and healthy stuff! Roasted turkey instead of “fried,” baked sweet potatoes instead of that marshmallow brown sugar nightmare found on most holiday tables, low sugar, highly spiced fruit crisp with minimal crust, and so on… If you don’t present it as “healthy” foods, but instead present it as “gourmet” or “something different and yummy” people are not going to moan and groan about it. This year, we took the party outside. Restaurants were the answer. My kitchen was left in its’ immaculate state with twigs and barks intact and ready for me when I came home!

The restaurants were not a fail whale for me at all. You see, since I have been on this very low calorie diet based in high levels of nutrient intake, my appetite isn’t much to write home about. I was not at all tempted to order the banana split sundae. The thought of that made me think about hurling. It did!  I had salmon. I had vegetables. I had a bite of someone elses tiramisu.  I was satisfied, not tempted, not suffering, not in pain and best of all, I did not have to deal with the digestive consequences of breaking my diet.

This fatty did not take off the holidays. I trudged right on through. Ok, I did get drunk on pear-in-the-bottle brandy. lol. The rest of the time I stuck with vodka and grapefruit juice.