5 Top Ways to Stay Skinny in the Season of Temptations

Honestly, eggnog’s the least of it. In this busy tizzy of a season, it’s the grab-and-go foods you swore off only yesterday--the morning doughnut, the Whopper at the mall, the bag of chips that mysteriously fell into your grocery cart--that get to your hips.

Your choices: 1) Say what-the-hey, splurge, and pray. 2) Splurge and do an extra hour on the elliptical trainer (but who has time!). Or 3) find some wiggle room. We’d opt for number three every time, so here are our top 5 eat-and-run treats.

1. Munchy and crunchy: potato chips
This one’s a snap: Walk right past the Pringles and grab a bag of Baked Lay’s Original Chips. Not only are Baked Lay’s worth eating but lots of chips lovers actually like them better than the original (less grease, more crunch). The BBQ flavor gets singled out especially. And you’ll save 50 calories and almost 10 grams of fat per ounce!

2. Soft and sweet: a cream-filled, chocolate-frosted Krispy Kreme doughnut
When something inside of you has to have a) chocolate and b) a Krispy Kreme, order three of their Glazed Chocolate Cake doughnut holes instead. For a much smaller tab--160 calories instead of 350, and 8 grams of fat instead of 20--you can still get your fix!

3. Solid and Satisfying: Snickers
This may not sound like it will satisfy your candy-bar craving, but trust us. Instead of a 2-ounce Snickers bar--with its 280 calories and 14 grams of fat--rip into a Chocolate Chunk Quaker Chewy Low-Fat Granola Bar. The stunning difference: The granola bar packs 110 calories and a measly 2 grams of fat. Can you feel your waist shrinking already?

4. Thick and juicy: a quarter-pounder
You’re driving by a string of fast-food joints when a burger attack strikes. Choose Burger King and order a Whopper Jr. While the fat content of fast-food burgers is basically the same across the board--about 20 grams each--BK’s unofficial quarter-pounder beats the competition otherwise: 370 calories, versus 410 for a quarter-pounder at McDonald’s and 430 for one at Wendy’s (with no cheese). Hold the mayo on your BK burger to knock off almost another 100 calories.

5. Brunch-y and Beautiful: eggs Benedict
It’s weekend brunchtime and you’re itching to whip up your famous cardiac-arrest special--two eggs, English muffin, Canadian bacon, Hollandaise sauce, the whole delicious disaster. You don’t want to know. You do? Okay. A classic eggs Benedict recipe comes to 892 calories and 72 grams of fat. Just as satisfying but a lot less scary is this version from Easy Home Cooking magazine that's only 237 calories and 6 grams of fat. If you also make the English muffin whole wheat, you’re practically a model of virtue!

In this case virtue is not its own reward. Regularly sidestepping all those calories could have you buying smaller belts (or little black dresses) in no time. Plus, eating a low-fat diet--and eating healthful unsaturated fats when you do eat fat--can make your RealAge as much as 6 years younger.