Daphne Oz on Christmas Shopping and Healthy Tips to Avoid the Holiday Bulge

— -- Daphne Oz definitely doesn't recommend that people dieting during the holidays. Instead, "The Chew" star recommends a different path that's not a "futile effort."

"I try to eat well during the week, so I don't feel guilty about eating whatever I want on the weekends," she told ABC News. "There's all these holiday parties happening and you are seeing all these people that you love.

“It's not the one Christmas cookie that's going to send you over. It's eating the entire tin, so for me it's about making sure I really load my plate up with vegetables and salad, and the things that are really nutrient dense."

Doing this allows Oz to have a side of mac & cheese or braised pork. She also recommends if there is an assortment of hors d'oeuvres, grab the three you are comfortable eating, and leave the table.

"That I think is a great strategy year-round, but especially during the holidays," she added.

This holiday is extra special for Oz, 28, who just welcomed daughter Philomena with her husband John Jovanovic in February. She's just excited to have her little girl sit at the table with her very large immediate family, upward of 30 people eating together for Christmas!

Oz has also been very open this year about how the road to getting her body back after a baby has been long one, which she said she expected.

"I lost about 40 pounds when I got to college, so I thought I knew something about losing weight," she said. "Baby weight is a whole new ballgame. It was frustrating to me how long it was taking to come off. I had to stop making it the focus of my everyday life. The less you pay attention to it overtly, the more subconsciously you are able to make smart choices."

Oz said after having a baby, the taboo items became the ones she craved the most.

"If you are constantly thinking , 'I can't have bread,' all you want is bread," she added. "What I had to realize is, look it took 10 months to have a baby, it's going to take at least that long to lose all the weight."

She made health a priority, not an obsession. She focused on lean proteins, lots of vegetables, some complex carbohydrates. "Making sure I never felt deprived, so those things don't become taboo," she said.

Oz said as far as going to the gym, any minute she can spend with her daughter is precious, so she tries to incorporate that into her workout routine. "What I started doing, was finding ways to workout at home ... I do Ballet Beautiful workouts online, I can do them from anywhere. I have never been a gym bunny, so I need to make it as easy for me to say 'yes' as possible."

Oz spoke to ABC as part of her collaboration with T.J.Maxx and Marshalls for their Holiday Gift Hotline earlier this month in New York. She manned the phones, helping shoppers find creative gifts for loved ones.

She even found a gift for her famous father, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who she said "does not like getting gifts," usually.

"He honestly doesn't think he needs anything," she said. "When we were kids growing up, all he wanted was for us to make him things. He wanted drawings and things. As I've gotten older, what I've realized is what he really wants is ways for us to spend time together."

As for her husband, Daphne said, he loves playing tennis, so she got him a racket and some lessons.

And for herself?

"I'm a girl, I always want jewelry, but my husband and I are in the process of buying our first home together," she said. "So, I think this year we are going to go small for me and I just want something special for the house. Like this was our first Christmas here, maybe like a Christmas tree ornament."