Make right-for-you choices

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You're facing a buffet table laden with trays of chicken marsala, lasagna, short ribs, you name it—not to mention that side table of colourful sugar cookies. What to eat, what to eat? Your Weekly gives three smart strategies for making decisions that you'll be happy with: Check your hunger level, make sure you're choosing the best available item, and—this is key!—be confident that it's something you'll truly savour. Each of these tactics can boost mindfulness. And the more you pay attention to what, how, and why you eat, the more likely you’ll be to plan ahead, make decisions that serve your goals, and truly enjoy the foods you choose.

Here are some other strategies that can help you navigate parties and dinners out—all year round:

Those store-bought cookies that you can find all year in the supermarket, only now they have some red and green sprinkles on them? That's a hard pass. Your neighbor's legendary homemade gingerbread people, trimmed with her secret-recipe creamy ganache? Oh, yeah. Glide right by the everyday and stale-looking and go for what’s special, homemade, a local legend, or all three. Ask yourself: Is this food worth it? Is it worthy of me?

To maximize the flexibility of your SmartPoints® Budget:

• Use your Weekly SmartPoints.

• Save up your SmartPoints rollovers to give you more weeklies to play with.

• Lean on ZeroPointTM foods the rest of the day to reserve more SmartPoints for the holiday event.

Scan the food setup before filling your plate. Look for ZeroPoint options: shrimp cocktail, raw veggies, fruit skewers, and such as your first line of attack. (But don’t deprive yourself of foods you really want; it’s likely to backfire and you might overdo.) Keep a drink in one hand, a plate in the other (except if you’re on the dance floor, of course!) and you’ll be less likely to reach for something you might not really want. Even better, move out of the sightline of the food—the dance floor’s a great place to be, in fact.

And when you’re back home, track as well as you can—the point is to track, not to be perfect—to keep the mindfulness going, and to set you up for success at your very next meal.