Claudette Olivier
Shane Darbonne with Mercy Regional Medical Center’s Wellness Center was the guest speaker at the Nov. 22 Ville Platte Rotary Club meeting.
Darbonne said, “Our holidays are coming and ready or not, here they come — Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s. We all know that with those holidays, comes a few extra pounds, we know that.
“When we talk about gaining weight during the holidays, the average American puts on five to six pounds. Of that weight, once we decide to get out of the holiday season, we keep one pound. If you count up all those Christmases, those extra pounds do add up.”
Darbonne has been director of center for the past 16 years.
During the meeting, Darbonne shared tips to combat weight gain during the holiday season.
“These are 10 easy tips you can hopefully kind of implement this year to maybe save you a few extra calories,” Darbonne said.
Tip 1: Get active prior to the holidays.
“Thanksgiving is Thursday, so that’s too late,” Darbonne said, laughing. “We can look forward to our Christmas, we can look forward to our New Year, and what we want to do is, start burning calories now, that way, we can actually have some extra cake, we can have some milk, we can have a few extra cookies.
Darbonne said to work early and start to burn calories.
Tip 2: On the day of a holiday gathering, eat breakfast.
“Somebody would say, ‘Well if I don’t have breakfast, I can have a whole bunch of food at lunch,’” but the breakfast will actually curb your appetite,” Darbonne said. “When we talk about breakfast, it doesn’t have to be a huge breakfast — a couple of eggs, some toast, just to give your body something to hold you over.
‘That’s a real easy one that we can easily do.”
Tip 3: Lighten up recipes.
“I came to Ville Platte probably 16 years ago, and I thought I had some good cooking in Grand Prairie,” Darbonne said. “It’s not even close to Evangeline Parish. Ya’ll bake the best, cook the best, all that stuff.
“But with that, we can cut back in a few areas.”
Darbonne suggested using fat free chicken broth if cooking a turkey and making gravy, or using a sugar substitute in baked goods.
“Also, I know we like to put in a whole bar of butter, and it tastes good, but maybe cut back to like half a bar,” Darbonne said. “If you cut back a little, it will help everyone who is going to eat it.”
Tip 4: Police your proportions.
Darbonne said, “You are going to have theses big ole tables full of food. We are going to want to eat all of it, but there are some things that are unique to our holidays — at Thanksgiving, at Christmas, at New Year’s. Try to stay away things you can eat any day of the week, and spend your calories on things that are more unique to that holiday.”
Darbonne also recommended skipping seconds and using that skip to have some dessert.
“All we are talking about it trying to save calories here, so you can spend them there (on dessert),” Darbonne said.
Tip 5: Slowly savor the food you are eating.
Darbonne said, “I don’t know if you have ever sat next to that guy who shovels and shovels. Stop, take a bite, put the fork down and enjoy the food. I’m the guy who does this because I like to eat.
“But with that being said, enjoy the food that people have made for you.”
Tip 6: Try to go easy on the alcohol.
“Alcohol is full of empty calories,” Darbonne said. “Those empty calories offer no energy. They (calories) end up on our hips our thighs, wherever it wants to.
Darbonne suggested having a glass of water after a drink.
“It just kind of helps to save a few calories compared to drink, drink, drink, drink, drink.”
He continued, “It’s a ton of calories you are taking in and the water simply helps to spread it out.”
Tip 7: It’s actually the overindulgence of the carbs that leads to sleep.
“After we eat, everybody wants to go take that nap,” Darbonne said. “Turkey has as much tryptophan in it as pork, any chicken you eat, it has the same amounts.
“That’s not what makes you go to sleep, not the turkey. Poor turkey. It’s been thrown under the bus for years for making us want to take mid day nap.”
Darbonne said tryptophan is an amino acid that when it combines in the brain, it produces a chemical called serotonin, and serotonin causes sleepiness.
“That little bit of Tryptophan in turkey that gets combined with the yams, the rice dressing, the corn bread dressing, all those carbohydrates, all that extra meat,” Darbonne said. “That add to more tryptophan, more serotonin, us taking that nap and those calories getting stored as fat.
“Let’s pull the turkey out from under the bus, because boy it has gotten a bad name for making us want to sleep.”
Tip 8: A post-Thanksgiving work out.
“When we get out of that routine of working out, it’s hard to get back into, so therefore, set a goal for yourself,” Darbonne said. “The post holiday workouts, and not a week or month — you want to do it that next day, and it keeps you moving.”
Tip 9: Be realistic.
Darbonne said, “It’s time for celebration. It’s time to be thankful for the things we have, the people we know, the family we have. But busy schedules, extra temptations, we don’t want to focus on weight loss at this time of the year.
“If you came to my office right now and said you want to lose weight, in Evangeline Parish, now is probably not the best time to lose weight.”
Darbonne said that instead of focusing on losing weight during the holiday season, individuals should focus on weight maintenance.
“We want to do as little damage as we can,” he said. “Maintain is all we need to do. When January 2 gets here, we start looking at those type (weight loss) of programs.
“But to start weight loss as this time of the year, it’s hard to set a goal because of what we are going to see — the drinking, the food, the families, the gatherings — it’s hard.”
Tip 10: Focus on family and friends.
Darbonne said, “Fix you a drink and enjoy it with your family and friends.”