In these dates we all try to keep the complicated balance between enjoying the wide range of Christmas cuisine, usually rich in fats and sugars, and maintaining a healthy diet.
As we frequently mention in this blog, enjoying is also part of living a healthy life. That means that tasting the typical Christmas sweets falls within our proposal to enjoy the best Christmas. However, I obviously do not urge readers to consume such delicacies without control and forgetting about the rest of foods that we doctors normally recommend.
This means that everything reduces to maintain the balance.
Therefore, we propose the following three tips:
- ORGANIZATION
The first thing is to be aware that the “one day is only a day” is valid only for the key days.
We will have special days marked in our calendars from mid-December to January 6. It is important, therefore, to maintain a balanced diet the rest of the days and to achieve this it is convenient to plan the menu for the two most critical weeks at least.
Planning the menu helps us maintain the proper proportion of legumes, fish, meat, fruits and vegetables and compensate for the excesses of those key days.
In addition, the organization will help us with another of our objectives: not eating the hyper caloric left overs on the following days, which are not marked as special days.
Finally, having everything more organized will reduce stress and we can enjoy a better and healthy Christmas.
- PAY ATTENTION TO THE MENU ON THE KEY DAYS
Obviously these are special days and the menu will be too, but some small tips will help us to improve the menu from a metabolic point of view, without limiting our joy in eating.
- Drinks: soft drinks always without sugar, alcohol in moderation and do not forget to put jugs of water on the table.
- Appetizers: they are usually very appetizing and at the same time very caloric. Including salads will help us include antioxidants. A good idea is to serve the appetizers on individual plates instead of picking them up from the center. This makes us more aware of the amount we are ingesting.
- Main course: better fish than meat and the best way to cook it is in the oven.
- Dessert: we recommend to take a small piece of the sweet dessert and complete it with a fruit salad.
One important point is not to skip lunch on the key day thinking that you will be able to enjoy dinner and compensate like this and not gain weight. The effect will be the opposite, you will sit down at the table being hungrier and you will therefore eat more at dinnertime. And this food will, on top of that, be mostly rich in fats and sugars and poor in antioxidants.
- INFALLIBLE WEAPON
Whether or not we comply with all the above advice, the exercise will help us this extra bit to take care of ourselves this Christmas. It will help us eliminate excess food and reduce stress. Doing sports does not have to be a purpose for the coming year, any day is a good day to start.
I hope these tips help you to enjoy a happy christmas holiday.
