Well, it's official, we have entered the Christmas party season! Invitations to work Christmas parties, social gatherings and family affairs are well and truly filling up the diary. These functions can make it really difficult if you’re trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Christmas parties are a great way to unwind after a busy year and celebrate your business successes, but they are too often bulging with food high in fat, sugar and salt, and alcoholic drinks. It wouldn’t be too bad if we indulged in just one party, but the reality is we often attend several Christmas functions – our own workplace, our partner’s workplace, clients, family and friends, the list goes on.
Here are a few tips to consider to avoid the Christmas kilo creep:
- Don’t go to the party hungry. If you arrive starving, you’ll be likely to fill up on the high fat, high salt appetizers like chips, cheese, dips and spring rolls. Try a healthy snack before heading to your party, you’ll find lots of ideas here
- On that note, if you find yourself without willpower in the presence of a good cheese platter position yourself away from it. By engaging in conversation on the other side of the room or even just keeping out of reach you’ll be far less likely to over indulge.
- Limit your alcohol intake. Try having a non-alcoholic drink in between alcoholic drinks, for example soda water with fresh lime, diet soft drink or water with lemon. And avoid entering ‘rounds’ or ‘shouts’, you could end up drinking a lot more than you plan to.
- If your Christmas party is ‘bring a plate’, make sure you prepare something healthy. That way you can be certain there is at least one dish you can fill up on. If you need some ideas check out these healthy recipes
- Resist the pre-dinner garlic bread or bread roll. Filling up on bread and butter before your dinner arrives adds a substantial amount of kilo-joules. Remember your meal is probably already higher in kilo-joules than you would normally eat due to the portion size, cooking methods, oil and sauces used in commercial cooking – not to mention dessert!
- Speaking of dessert, share if you can! Most of the time we eat dessert for the taste of something sweet, not because we are hungry, so halve the kilo-joules by sharing.
The bottom line is: choose your vice - your health will benefit by choosing to indulge in just one or two things and following the tips above, when you can.
