Tips For Surviving Christmas

You’ve worked hard all year to get fitter, lose your sugar cravings and take control of your health. Then along comes Christmas. You may be worried that all the hard work you have put in to developing healthier eating and exercise habits will be undone. As long as you adopt your healthy regime again as soon as possible, Christmas shouldn’t be something to fear.  In the meantime here are a few tips to help you survive the Christmas period and still enjoy it. 

Curb the cravings for sugar and carbs

  • Fill at least half your plate with lots of vegetables to ensure you are eating a wide variety of vitamins and minerals.  The more colourful the better.  Fill the other quarter with protein (turkey, nut roast). This way there is less room on your plate for those hard to resist roast potatoes.
  • Eat the sugary treats as a dessert at meal times only rather than as snacks in between.  If you are full up from the meal you are less likely to have room for lots of the sugary desserts.
  • Alternatively buy some lovely speciality cheeses and have them as dessert instead.

Drink less Alcohol 

To keep your alcohol intake low replace every other alcoholic drink (and sugary fizzy drink) with a glass of water.

Include some healthy eating habits 

  • Only eat within an 8 hour window eg if you finish eating by 7pm don’t have breakfast until 11 am the next morning – this is a form of intermittent fasting which has been shown to burn fat.
  • Have healthy food days in between feast days.

Don’t forget to exercise to help burn those extra calories

  • Get outside in the fresh air and walk everyday.  This will also give you a feeling of wellbeing.
  • If you are an experienced exerciser do 20 mins of high intensity exercise in the morning of a feast day.   This will help you burn more fat. Skipping, dancing, anything to get you out of breath.  Alternatively if time is an issue, try the set of exercises below.  Warm up for 3 mins before.  Then do the exercises one after the other as fast as you can within 2 mins.  Repeat the set 4 more times. Then cool down for 2 mins.  This routine will take 15 mins – the same time as my oven takes to warm up!
  • 5 burpees
  • 10 push ups
  • 15 plank scissor jumps
  • 20 squat jumps

Remember Christmas is only 2 weeks, so enjoy it and know that you can go straight back to your normal regime of healthy eating and exercise in January.

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4 ‘Essential ingredients’ check sheet
Sign up for your FREE checksheet to fall in love with your body and life during your perimenopausal years and beyond.
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Sign up for your FREE checksheet to fall in love with your body and life during your perimenopausal years and beyond.