Send comments to the editor: well@wellsource.com Nutt to Manage Yo gDid you know diet hack that can help prevent weight gain? Forget fad diets, weight-loss pills, and gimmicky workouts. If you want to maintain your weight, or even lose a few pounds, crack this open. New research a small handful of nuts each day may help prevent 1 to 2 pounds of weight gain a year. 1 In the study, this habit also helped lower the risk for obesity by 16 percent. Craving a snack? Skip the chips and candy bars, and go nuts. Try walnuts, peanuts, cashews, almonds, or pistachios. Try these sweet potato recipes tinyurl.com/9k3cwre This root vegetable is low in calories and is loaded with:2 • which helps regulate blood pressure and supports muscle strength. • Vtmn A which keeps your eyes, skin, teeth, and bones healthy. • In fact, a serving of sweet potatoes with the skin has more fiber than a serving of oatmeal. • Vtmn C ad io to support the immune system • that may help reduce cholesterol and lower the risk of heart disease.3 You may not have the same view as Koch this holiday season. But you can still celebrate with healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds, legumes…and sweet potatoes. A Tasty Space Food for Thanksgiving Sweet potatoes: Rich source of vitamins and nutrients INFORMATION FOR KEEPING HEALTHY NOV 2019 Follow the Playbook for Healthy Holiday Eating 4 moves to avoid the holiday-meal hurt When U.S. astronaut Christina Koch wakes up on Thanksgiving Day, she’ll have a special treat to remind her of home. And it’s not the view of Earth 254 miles away from the International Space Station. There’s a space-age holiday meal on the menu. Koch will eat turkey, stuffing, spicy pound cake, and the official vegetable of her home state of North Carolina…sweet potatoes. There’s plenty for her to share with the others on the space station. Fun facts: Farmers in North Carolina grow half of all sweet potatoes in the United States every year. That’s about 212 billion tubers. Sweet potatoes have sweet, orange flesh. And most people eat just 5.2 pounds of sweet potatoes a year. That’s not a lot. Discover the health benefits of sweet potatoes Fixing sweet potatoes for the holiday? You should. But skip the toasted marshmallows and syrup. It’s no secret that Thanksgiving Day is best known for two things. Food and football. Ask any armchair quarterback, and they’ll tell you every team has a game plan to run the ball, tackle, and score touchdowns. And you should too, when it comes to those big meals between now and New Year’s. If you don’t, you just might feel the hurt when you step on the scale.4 So get your game face on. You need to be ready to stare down that holiday buffet table loaded with piles of food, drinks, and desserts. Try towing it, and you run the risk of a penalty when you weigh in. Here’s the playbook to take control of your diet this holiday season. Pl Keep tabs on daily calories. Find out how many calories you should be eating per day with the Choose My Plate calculator. Track your calories with a mobile app or food journal. Use your daily calorie goal to help you decide what to eat. Pl2 Eat light earlier in the day. When you know you’re headed to a big meal later in the day, cut back on calories before you go. Eat light. Choose a green salad, soup, or fruits and vegetables. Then when the dinner bell rings, and it’s game on, you won’t be as hungry Pl3 Go for small portions of everything. Unless you plan to burn as many calories as a pro-football wide receiver in a tough game, forget about piling a mountain of food on your plate.