Merry Christmas,

The holidays are here. It is critical to stay on track during this stressful time. Many people have asked how to stick to the hair loss diet on Christmas. I'm going to give you a few important tips to help you stay on track.

When you're eating with your family around the holidays, women love you when you compliment their food. Unfortunately, a lot of the foods that are on the table do not pass the hair loss diet test. A simple solution would be to load up your plate with the healthy foods that they are serving.

You can have green bean casserole, collard greens, salads with your choice of dressing, yams with no sugar, turkey, ham, home-made macaroni & cheese. You can even eat a small portion of stuffing if you are not gluten intolerant. Wine is permissible as well. These are only a few examples of foods that are allowed.

This is only a general guide. These foods taken in moderation on Christmas day will only moderately raise your blood sugar and will not affect your hair negatively.

A great tip is this: Load up on the foods that are allowed on the diet. When your host sees you loading up your plate, and then going back for seconds, he or she will be delighted that you love the menu. And they won't notice so much that you're not eating the foods that are not allowed on the diet.

You can also use Christmas day as your cheat day, but don't overdo it!

More holiday diet tips here!

Here are more general tips and guidelines for shopping and cooking:

Tip No. 1:

Don't waste leftovers. If you have a small bowl of beans, a little bit of rice, and some leftover meat and vegetables, throw it in a pan and heat it up. It's like makeshift fried rice. You'd be surprised how good this tastes.

Tip No. 2

When you're shopping in the supermarket, always reach towards the back. Store personnel is required to rotate the oldest items first, and the newer items are stocked towards the back. Dig and reach for the newest stocked items. The dates can make a difference of about two weeks in freshness.

Tip No. 3

When you're buying spinach, get organic. The price is slightly higher, but it's worth every penny. Not only is certified organic spinach free from chemicals and pesticides, it lasts much longer than regular brand spinach. I have found that organic spinach outlasts regular spinach by as much as 10 days.

Tip No. 4

As you all know, broccoli is one of the most important foods for your hair. You should be eating broccoli at least twice per week. When you're looking for broccoli, look at the base. The base should be light green with no brown or darkened areas. The fresher broccoli will have a light green healthy glow, with no brown, yellow, or areas that look like they're starting to rot.

Tip No. 5

When you're cooking, don't be afraid to make mistakes. Some of my most requested recipes are the result of directly making unintentional errors, and the results were fantastic!

Tip No. 6

Say you have a carrot, a half of an onion, a solitary bell pepper, and you're not sure what to eat. One trick I do is throw vegetables together in a wok, saute it together and see how it tastes.

Tip No. 7

Always cook more than you need. This will save time for the next few days. In particular rice, beans, quinoa, or other carbohydrates. When it's lunchtime for the next day, all you have to do is heat your leftovers in a pan, and you're done. This technique will save you many hours of cooking time.

Tip No. 8

During your next shopping trip, stock up on kale, bok choy and and leeks. These vegetables not only target hair loss, but they actually last a lot longer than other vegetables and produce less waste.

Tip No. 9

For budget busters, consider buying off-label products. I was told by a friend that works in a factory that when they're packaging famous name brand food on an assembly line, all they do is change the label on that same assembly line from a famous brand to a store brand. So you're getting the exact same product, but you're saving major bucks. Although we avoid the vast majority of processed foods, this is particularly true for tomato sauce, beans, and other canned items allowed on the hair loss diet.

Tip No. 10

I personally love olive oil for sauteing vegetables and fish. It's best to store olive oil in the refrigerator to prevent spoiling, but this can create a problem. The olive oil can become thick and clogged. A handy tip is to run the olive oil in hot water to loosen it up. This will unclog the oil and you can refrigerate the rest.

I hope you enjoy these tips. Please stay in touch in the forum and let us know how you're doing.

Happy Holidays!