The holidays can be a struggle to stay on track with your nutrition and exercise plan, but can become increasingly difficult if you struggle with food sensitivities. Holiday gatherings always have an abundance of food, food that might not fit into your dietary restrictions. This can lead to temptations to dive into foods that won’t have you feeling 100% the next day.

Thankfully, with a little prep, you can easily navigate your way through holiday food gatherings. Use these five tips for managing the holidays food sensitivities to help you get through the all those parties feeling your best. 

1. Always offer to bring a dish to the get together that fits into your dietary needs. This will ensure that you will have something to snack on and will be less tempted to dive into other dishes that don’t fit your needs. 

2. Never go to a holiday party starving. Within 5 minutes you will be at the food table and your ability to hold back on foods outside of your plan will go down. Make sure to have a small snack before going to the party that can hold you over to be able to make intuitive eating decisions when standing in front of the food table. 

3. If you are uncertain about a dish that is being served, always feel free to ask the host. Food sensitivities are very common these days and people are usually receptive to listing what ingredients are in the dish

4. Have a plan going into the party that you are going to stick to your nutrition plan of keeping sensitivities out. Remember how those foods make you feel when you eat them and then picture how good you feel when they are not in your eating plan. It may even help to journal before the holidays. Sometimes when we start feeling a lot better, we forget how far we have come in our journey and how we used to feel before changing our eating.

5. If you happen to eat one or two of your food sensitivities and the foods left you not feeling well, get right back on track the next day. Drink a lot of water, get some movement in and get  back to your normal eating plan. Don’t let one night of being off plan derail you for the rest of the holiday season. Within a day or two you should be back feeling well and ready to navigate more parties.