Avoiding extra pounds during football season.

It's football season. Just because you love the sport doesn't mean you have to eat like a linebacker.

Ahh, fried chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, cookies and brownies. Not to mention the endless flow of beer. Sound familiar? This is your average football tailgate spread.

Every football season, hundreds of fans gather in various locations near Panthers stadium for the traditional tailgate…the party before the game starts. This is when all sensible eating and drinking pretty much goes out the window. But it doesn't have to be that way. If you are a diehard football and enjoy the tailgate parties, you too have healthy options. Instead of fried chicken, you can have boneless buffalo wings or perhaps bbq chicken tenders. Both can be made with your low fat chicken breast, sliced then marinated in your sauce of choice then grilled to perfection. Instead of hotdogs choose turkey bratwurst. Instead of hamburgers made with ground beef, use ground chicken or turkey. Other options are lowfat bean dip, of course celery and carrots with a tasty dip as well. Not to mention that the list of low carb/light beers go on and on. My personal favorite is Amstel light, great taste without the extra calories. I can go over forever.

My point is you don't have to throw your "normally" healthy eating habits down the drain when partaking in pre-game festivities. Look at it this way, use football tailgating as "pre-season" to holiday eating. Let this be practice for you so when the holidays are upon us, which by the way is in the near future, you will already be a pro at making alternative healthy food decisions that can be just as appetizing.

On that note, I'm as big of a football fan as they come. The Panthers have lost the first 3 pre-season games. I hope by the time you read this, we would have won our first home game of the season.

Keep up the good work
Read me next month,
Desiree