Tackling Football Season on a Healthier Note

Football Sundays are officially back this weekend (cue the cheers!). The seasons are changing and a lot of you are probably wondering how you are going to get back on track after summer with fall right around the corner and all of the temptations that come with this season (ex: all the apple and pumpkin treats, football Sunday snacks and booze). Well I've compiled a few tips and tricks that I thought I would share to help you survive football season on a healthier note (key is healthier).
1. Food prep early
If you know you are in for a long Sunday funday, at least plan ahead and prep your food for the week that morning before the game starts. This way, if you end up making bad diet decisions on Sunday at least you will have healthy food prepared for you for the rest of the week. If you don't have your meals prepared, it's easy to let your Sunday bad decisions bleed into the rest of the week. So tip 1= food prep!
2. Pick your battles
Game day can be a long day. If you are a huge NFL fan you may be planning to be in front of the TV or at the bar from noon through the Sunday night game. So you can start the day off with an early brunch and continue through your Sunday with more mimosas and questionable diet decisions (which to be honest is the route I sometimes choose!) OR you can pick your battles. Take it easy the night before so that you can get up and get a good workout in that morning before you become a couch or bar potato for the rest of the afternoon. If you can't fathom the idea of watching Tom Brady murder the NFL without an ice cold brew in your hand than at least make some healthier decisions on the meal side (more veggies less pizza). Or vice versa. If having your Sunday burger, pizza, or giant brunch is a tradition that you can't pass up than maybe saying no to the booze is more realistic for you.
3. Host the game at home
This allows you to have much more control over the food and drinks you are surrounded with. It can be challenging to find healthy options if you are watching the game at a bar or another friends house. By offering to host the game at your place, or just skipping human contact in general (another choice I often go for) this allows you to set yourself up for a much healthier Sunday afternoon, or at the least less expensive.
4. Portion control
So you want the booze and the garbage meals, okay, well if you are going to choose both maybe think about portion control. Easier said than done. But seriously just taking 6 beers down to 3 will cut down on ~400+ calories alone. Having 1 slice of pizza instead of 3, there is another ~400+ calories and just like that, 800 calories saved.
5. The Obvious: skip the booze and treat meals
I've had my fair share of healthy football Sundays with my water jug and low carb pizza and to be honest I get so into the games that I really don't care and sometimes lose my appetite during close games because I am a freak. Maybe you don't want to spend your Sundays healthy AF but you can choose to have SOME low key game days. Going back to the "pick your battles" tip. If your team is playing on a Thursday or Monday night, maybe this is a weekend that you can keep it low key. Bad weather? Keep yourself warm with a healthy turkey chili instead of a booze blanket. If you are looking for healthy game day ideas, I put together a post a couple years ago for the Superbowl that has some of my favorite healthy game day snacks here (disregard the horrible food photo quality).
So I know these all seem like pretty obvious health tips but these decisions really do add up. If you are serious about getting your diet back on track then it's important to not let a Sunday ruin all of your hard work. Finding the fine line between balance and #treatyoself every Sunday for 18 weeks will be a huge game changer. I've had my fair share of Sunday fundays and their will be more to come but I'm definitely aware of when and what treats are worth it for me. So with that said, cheers to a happy and healthier football season!