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6 Healthy(ish) Recipes to Crush Your Next Holiday Party

By Molly Hurford, Outside, 11/22/19, 8:15AM PST

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Check out these athlete favorites for some potluck inspiration.

For athletes with specific training and nutritional needs, the holiday season can be tricky to navigate. Do you channel your inner bon vivant and have a third helping of pecan pie, or do you take care to avoid piling your plate with foods that might make tomorrow’s training run a little harder? Ultimately, the best defense is a good offense: if you bring a homemade dish to every party, you ensure that you have something hearty and healthy(ish) to eat.

Sports nutrition expert and Feed Zone Cookbook author Allen Lim explains that when it comes to eating rich, delicious food, context is key: “What you eat in celebration will have little bearing on the big picture. It’s not what you eat on one day—it’s what you consistently eat every other day that really matters. But with classic holiday favorites, almost every recipe could be toned down slightly, so that we can still enjoy a good portion without it being so sweet, fatty, or calorically dense. It’s a balance.”