Maintaining a healthy diet can be hard throughout the many social outings that come along with the holiday season. It becomes more difficult to choose foods that will make your body feel good and function in the best way it can.

However, you do not need to put added stress about food on yourself this holiday season. Remind yourself that Christmas only comes around once each year, so you need to treasure every memory that comes with it. These memories often revolve around lots of food, and that is just one of the simple joys of the holiday family get-togethers.

Instead of focusing on what you should or shouldn't be eating, focus on friends and family. The only thing that should really matter is the love that has gone into making the multiple special dishes you get to enjoy and the amazing people you get to share in eating them with.

Here are 2 things you can try to stay true to this Christmas, rather than trying to start a restrictive diet that will probobly fail in the long run.

Eat to feel good.

Eating for satisfaction means many things. It means eating fresh, whole foods that will provide your body with the nutrients it needs to keep doing the amazing things it does. It also means eating foods with little to no nutrition, purely for the sake of enjoyment. It means eating foods you have been craving. It means eating foods you wouldn't have normally chosen, just to please the person who has made it for you.

Eating to feel good is about finding a healthy balance between eating for physical health and eating for social health. It is extremely individual. Eating to feel good involves finding which foods and how much food feels good in your unique body.

Move to feel good.

You may find you are less active during the holidays than you are throughout the rest of the year. With colder weather and shorter days, holiday gatherings tend to involve sitting around inside.

There is nothing wrong with being inactive for one week during the year, after all it is just one week. Sitting around inside usually means you are taking some much needed downtime, or enjoying the company of family and friends. For some it is even more health promoting than exercise to have a period of rest, in order to focus on relationships and improve social and emotional health.

It comes down to listening to your body and respecting it enough to listen to what it needs. Maybe that means getting outside to go for a walk with your family. Maybe it means staying inside and playing board games. But however you choose to spend your time this Christmas, I hope you are able to eat and move in order to feel good.

Merry Christmas!