Avoid derailing diet during holidays

If you've been watching what you eat and have either lost weight or kept it off this year, map your strategy now for navigating the treacherous stretch from Thanksgiving to New Year's. Here are some tasty ideas for avoiding diet disasters.

Elevate your activity levels: Starting now, park farther from the mall or supermarket entrance. It'll be easier to find a spot, and while you're walking in you can plan out your shopping.

Volunteer at a local shelter or community organization. During this season, and with this economy, groups need volunteers to do everything from wrap gifts to serving and even delivering meals. You'll get a true holiday feeling when you help others and burn some extra calories.

Eat before you eat: Before you go to a holiday party, eat something light, like an apple or pear (they're both in season). You won't be hungry when you arrive and you'll make better eating decisions when your stomach isn't rumbling.

Don't diet on Jan. 1: If you make eating decisions thinking that you're going to go back to or begin a weight-loss program after the first of the year, you're giving yourself permission to eat too much now. So get those thoughts out of your head right now.

If you've been good all year, keep doing what you're doing.

Think whole grains: Making stuffing for Thanksgiving dinner? Consider using whole grain, whole wheat bread cubes. They'll deliver more complex flavor, better nutrition and more fiber. The extra fiber is calorie free and helps folks feel fuller, faster. You'll be helping yourself and your guests.

Rethink the way you cook. You can cut calories from holiday meals with easy substitutions: thicken gravy with cornstarch, use fat-free margarine or spray or pour Butter Buds over vegetables. You can save about 100 calories for every tablespoon of butter or margarine you cut out. Little changes can make big differences.

Go skinny dipping: Bring a platter of colorful, fresh vegetables and low-calorie dip to the party. In your favorite homemade dip recipe, replace full-fat mayonnaise (100 calories per tablespoon) with fat-free (10 calories) or reduced-fat (15 calories) mayonnaise dressing. Do the same with sour cream (51 calories per 2 tablespoons) and substitute reduced-fat (41 calories), or better still, fat-free (29 calories) sour cream. Few if any guests will know the difference and when you tell them, they'll ask for your recipe.

Pass on the nog: A jigger (1.5 ounces) of any 80-proof liquor (gin, rum, brandy, whiskey) delivers almost 100 calories - before adding any mix. A cup of spiked eggnog delivers an astounding 400 calories. Try diet tonic over ice with a twist of lime: tasty, and zero calories.

Switch plates at a holiday buffet: Take a dinner plate through the salad part of a holiday buffet and a salad plate through the entree section. Put the dressing on the side; first dipping your fork tines in the dressing and then into salad.

If you're still hungry after your first pass, wait 15 minutes before returning to the buffet. Most of the time you'll feel full at the end of that time and won't go back.

What are your holiday diet strategies. Pass them along and I'll share them in an upcoming column.

Try this recipe: My mom made a cranberry Jell-O mold blended with sour cream and then topped it with slightly sweetened sour cream and chopped pecans. Tasty? Yes. Diet friendly? Not even close. I reworked her salad and dressing, slashing calories and trimming fat. My mom could not tell the difference.

• Don Mauer welcomes recipe makeover requests and shared recipes. Write him c/o Daily Herald Food section, P.O. Box 280, Arlington Heights, IL 60006 or at don@theleanwizard.com.

Holiday Cranberry Salad

2 packages (3 ounces regular or 0.3 ounce sugar-free) raspberry gelatin

1 cup hot water

3 cups nonfat sour cream, divided

1 can (15 ounces) jellied cranberry sauce

8 ounces nonfat sour cream

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

24 Bibb lettuce leaves

2½ tablespoons finely chopped toasted pecans (see note)

Place gelatin in a heat-safe bowl and add hot water; whisking until combined. Add 2 cups sour cream and cranberry sauce. With an electric mixer, mix until completely combined, about 2 minutes.

Lightly spray a 6-cup gelatin mold with vegetable oil. Pour prepared gelatin mixture into mold and refrigerate overnight or until firm.

For the dressing: In a small bowl whisk 1 cup sour cream with the sugar until combined. Cover and refrigerate.

To serve: Unmold gelatin to a serving plate; refrigerate 15 minutes.

Place two lettuce leaves on each of 12 salad plates. Serve a slice of gelatin on the leaves; spoon some of the dressing over the top. Dust with a pinch of pecans. Pass the remaining dressing at the table.

Serves 12.

Cook's note: To toast nuts, distribute nuts on a baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 3-5 minutes; shake pan from time to time, until the pecans darken slightly and become aromatic. Remove from the oven immediately, cool and finely chop.

Nutrition values per serving: 197 calories (6.5 percent from fat), 1.4 g fat (trace amount saturated), 28.8 g carbohydrates, 0.5 g fiber, 5.5 g protein, 8 mg cholesterol, 94 mg sodium.

<p class="factboxheadblack">The LeanWizard Live</p> <p class="News">Don Mauer will demonstrate trimmed-down versions of holiday favorites this weekend at the Daily Herald booth at the Great American Cooking Expo at Harper College in Palatine.</p> <p class="News"><b>Demo times:</b> 7:30 p.m. Nov. 14; noon, 2 and 4 p.m. Nov. 15 and noon Nov. 16.</p> <p class="News">He'll also be around to talk with readers and sign books.</p>