ESCANABA — During the notoriously-overindulgent festive season, it’s easy to overeat, fall back on diet goals, and fill up on unhealthy foods. An OSF HealthCare dietitian recently provided some tips based in health science on how to wisely navigate holiday dinners.

Most people understand, theoretically, that moderation is key; here’s how to practice it — and other healthy habits.

PACE INGESTION

Chewing each mouthful 20 to 30 times may sound like a lot, but it’s something clinical dietitian Jason Crum — who specializes in gastrointestinal nutrition — says is better for the gut and helps slow eating.

“We often chew four or five, six times, and then we’re swallowing — we’re able to eat a meal in five, ten minutes. And truth be told, that’s not the best for your GI tract,” said Crum. “When you’re chewing up the food a lot more, you’re getting more saliva in there, which is helping with digestion, but it’s also letting the hormones that are working with food and digestion tell you (how full you’re getting).”

He also suggested sipping water between bites and taking the time to check in and consider stopping when the feeling of 80% fullness sets in.

DON’T SKIP MEALS

Depriving yourself of breakfast and lunch so that you’ve got more of an appetite for a big dinnertime feast can be counterintuitively detrimental. Voracious hunger can lead to overeating.

Crum said an apple can serve as a good pre-meal snack — the fiber in the fruit and its peel can give the stomach something to work on and help a person feel somewhat full.

SERVE FROM COUNTER

Making the act of getting seconds slightly inconvenient can help; to this end, try leaving serving dishes on the counter instead of on the table within easy reach.

“Sometimes, this time of the year, we’re kind of feeling like we might eat a little bit more, but a lot of us don’t want to get up from the table,” said Crum. “You know, we’re having fun talking to family, maybe we’re feeling a little bit lazy. Use that laziness to your advantage and keep the dishes that are easier to overeat on the other side of the room or in a different room.”

CONSIDER PORTIONS

It’s easy to enable eyes bigger than stomachs, so to speak, when guests are provided with all the real estate of ten-inch dinner plates. Doing so also leads to more food waste.

Providing five- or seven-inch plates forces people to more consciously choose their portions, rather than heaping on unnecessarily large servings.

A well-proportioned meal may be thought of like a pie chart, with half occupied by vegetables, a quarter by protein, and the next largest sections by whole grain and fruit.

EAT VEGGIES FIRST

To again use the idiom, eyes are often bigger than stomachs. This means that we think we’ll be able to eat more than we actually can. If you start by eating the vegetables, proteins and other wholesome dishes first, you may find that you become satisfied before moving on to the less heathy options — which is a better route than filling up on junk and carbs and having no room for the vitamin-rich, lower-calorie items.

SEEK WHOLE AND REAL

Anything that comes from a can or box or is otherwise ultra-processed will be less healthy than foods with fresh ingredients. For example, sauce made from cooking down fresh cranberries is a far better option than jellied tube-shaped stuff full of corn syrup.

“The more that we process food, the more we take away from it and have to add it back in, if we even add that back in. So you’re removing a lot of the phytonutrients, or phytochemicals. They’re also called antioxidants,” Crum said. “Eat a little bit more whole or real food. … Prepare a meal even with simple ingredients, versus a processed food. It would be a much better choice, because not all calories are the same.”

Frozen vegetables, it’s worth noting, are an excellent option for those on a budget. The plain kind — not seasoned or sauced — are not processed, but flash-frozen after being picked at peak ripeness and contain as much nutrients as fresh produce while being far more affordable.

USE ALTERNATIVES

Low carb or whole grain versions of breads aren’t hard to find, can reduce blood sugar spikes and contain more fiber than white bread, which tends to be made from refined flour stripped of germ and bran.

Instead of relying on flavor from salt — which is connected to numerous long-term health problems — try to use herbs and spices to tantalize the taste buds. The American Heart Association recommends that most adults consume no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day, but many Americans ingest twice that. A single teaspoon of salt contains 2,300 milligrams of sodium, and processed foods usually contain sodium as a preservative — another reason to steer clear.

Crum mentioned that certain recipes mimic the flavor of salt by using lemon, garlic, onion, and/or other seasonings.

DON’T SIT STILL

“After you eat a meal, regardless of the size and how much you ate, try to walk a little bit or move around after that meal,” Crum said. “It helps with blood sugar, but it also helps with digestion. Because if you sit down and you have tight clothing on and you feel like you overate, that’s just compressing against your stomach, and that can increase the reflux risk.”

Walking within 30 minutes after eating has been shown to aid in weight loss and appetite regulation, in addition to the other benefits that come along with exercise in general, such as improved mood, better sleep and heart health.