How to get through the festive season... without ending up the size of Santa!
It is not uncommon for British adults to gain up to half a stone over the Christmas and New Year period. Americans tend to start the party season even earlier, with Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November and, as a result, they can gain around 10 pounds before the New Year diet starts!
Top Tips for not putting on weight during this time You can continue to lose weight during the holiday period. Stick to the turkey and vegetables, smoked salmon and Satsumas – the real food on off er – and you can actually lose weight while others are gaining. However, if you just want to enjoy treats at Christmas, but without paying the price on the scales, here is how to ‘cheat’ and not put on weight:
Don’t waste cheating Don’t eat everything in sight – eat what you really want. Don’t eat the white bread at the start of the meal and fi ll yourself up on something that isn’t even that tasty. Save your cheating for the meal and enjoy a delicious dessert, if that’s what you love. Don’t pick at left overs, don’t eat a handful of nuts when you could have a meal of your choice for a similar number of calories. Don’t eat anything you aren’t fussed about.
Eat as few ingredients as possible The fewer processed ingredients you can attack your body with the better. If you really fancy a bag of crisps/chips then have a bag, but pick the one that has the simple ingredients potatoes and vegetable oil (you don’t even need salt). There are some packets of crisps that have more than one hundred ingredients in them – avoid these like the plague!
If you want ice cream then choose a quality 72
brand with very few ingredients. A posh vanilla ice cream has (in order) fresh cream, skimmed milk, sugar, egg yolk and natural vanilla fl avouring and tastes as good as ice cream can possibly get. Don’t pick the carton with more ingredients than you can recognise let alone remember.
Don’t eat your normal meal AND cheat If you are going to have a couple of mince pies for lunch then make that your lunch. Don’t have a turkey sandwich as well, as your body will just store the fat in the turkey when you eat carbohydrates (bread and pastry).
Never forget that insulin is the fattening hormone Every time you eat a carbohydrate your body will produce a substance called insulin, to get your blood sugar back to normal. Insulin is also known as the fattening hormone, so you want to minimise the number of times that you eat carbohydrates during a day. If you want some chocolates, therefore, pick some really high quality/high cocoa content chocolates and eat them all at once (enjoying every one). Don’t have one every now and again throughout the day, or you will keep messing around with your blood sugar.
Just because you can cheat doesn’t mean you have to Yes, there’s junk around at times of celebration but there’s also a lot of good stuff too. We tend to have treats like roast beef, smoked salmon, avocados, asparagus and exotic fruits at festive gatherings. You won’t miss out on anything by not eating processed foods again so, if you don’t have any urge to ‘cheat’, then don’t.
Health the Harcombe Way,
www.zoeharcombe.com
To advertise in thewire t. 07720 429 613 e.
the.wire@btinternet.com
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