Conquer Wedding Season Woes with a Paleo Diet
HOW TO STAY HEALTHY GOING TO WEDDINGS EVERY WEEKEND
It may be swimsuit season and staying the course for your perfect bikini bod is motivation enough to stay the course and stick to a Paleo regime. But it’s also the time of year when weddings start to fill our weekends! Whether you’re attending, a part of the wedding party, or it’s your very own, I have just the ticket you need to stay in shape and bask in that wedding glow!
June is one of the most popular months to get married[1], so if you have back to back nuptials on the calendar well throughout the summer, trust me, you’re not alone. From bridesmaid to bride to guest, we all want to look our best for such a special occasion that truly will go down in family history, not to mention permanently captured in wedding albums, prints, and couple’s websites!
The pressure’s on. No doubt about it.
Cornell University found 70% of engaged women said they wanted to lose weight, on average, 20 pounds before saying their I Dos.[2] Any bride would naturally want to look her best on her big day and similarly, the wedding party also want to feel beautiful. But are we prone to crash dieting, or worse, taking even more extreme measures?
A recent article in The New York Times accounted for women following medically supervised weight loss programs where they ate nothing and instead rely upon formula administered by their doctor through a feeding tube to obtain required nutrients!
It starts with a weight loss goal and ends with an unhealthy pattern. You’re faced with one wedding after the next, struggling to delicately balance sticking to your diet, not gaining weight, and at the same time, steer clear of deprivation. Next thing you know, you’ve adopted a habit that’s tough for you and your body to break.
To make matters trickier, wedding cuisine doesn’t always scream healthy food. Unlike dining at a restaurant where making modifications can be quite simple, it’s often a matter of several dishes having been made in advance with little to no room to be able to omit the (gluten-containing) sauce or to skip the cheese.
Then, to add even more insult to injury, if you’re actually in the wedding party, and start your day at 11 am for hair and makeup, then photos, then the ceremony and so forth, it can be hours before you’ll have a chance to obtain any sustenance! It becomes all the more likely you’ll be dealing with a plummeting blood sugar level and be more inclined to make irrational, unhealthy food choices.
But it doesn’t have to be this trying, desperate situation I’m making it out to be in the above examples.
For one thing, if it’s your wedding, you can be in complete control of the menu and whether or not you chose to call it Paleo (I opted not to use the word), you can focus on an abundance of fresh veggies prepared to your liking, and perhaps a choice of two proteins, such as wild salmon and grass fed filet mignon, followed with a plethora of fresh berries. Which, incidentally, is exactly what we served at ours!
If you’re in the wedding party, you can still stay on track with just a little planning. In the morning before you arrive for your call time, be sure to get in a good workout first thing and follow it up with a protein, veg, and fat-rich breakfast to keep you going strong all day long. A veggie omelet with a side of wild salmon and avocado would do the trick!
Stay hydrated and bring portable snack options that won’t risk spoiling your makeup or spilling on your dress. Think an ample serving of raw, sprouted walnuts or a single serving, frozen packet of coconut oil or almond butter. (As you get more and more fat adapted, a fat-only snack makes perfect sense to keep your energy level going full speed ahead!).
Once the actual event begins, it’s a matter of planning, picking and choosing, just the same as any other event you might attend. See what the options are and do your best to make good choices based on what’s available, keeping in mind your social graces. Your best friend’s wedding isn’t the best place to have a fit because they’re not serving gluten-free pasta.
There are going to be grey areas and you may have to choose the Chicken Paillard topped with shaved parm (and subtly avoid the parmesan) because it was the better choice than lasagna.
On a similar note, if there are several tempting indulgences that you really would like to splurge on, pick on and factor in how your body is going to react, and let that determine which you’ll choose as your treat. If you used to eat chocolate cake and have deduced that gluten makes you sick to your stomach, perhaps that lovely torte is not your answer.
However, the wine that’s being served is out of this world, and having already tested this on occasion, you’ve ruled out that it doesn’t result in any adverse affects (other than the obvious, if too much were consumed!).
By using this planning approach, you’ll enjoy the wedding all the more without overstuffing yourself with foods that don’t jive with your body or your long term health goals. Plus, since you’re proactive, rather than a binge on a whim, you can more easily remove any negative emotional consequence you may have otherwise associated with the choices you made.
From personal experience, weddings are blissful, beautiful gatherings that truly fall into the life changing event category. By planning ahead and giving yourself enough time to safely lose weight if needed in due time for the date or dates, while simultaneously implementing healthy, real Paleo eating habits, you’ll find yourself sailing through this festive season with a spring in your step.
Say goodbye to that stressed-out wedding party or guest feeling once and for all!
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REFERENCES
[1] “03/27/2014: TheKnot.com Releases 2013 Wedding Statistics.” XOGroupInc.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 June 2015.
[2] Lee, Linda. “Bridal Hunger Games.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 Apr. 2012. Web. 25 June 2015.
