Its that time of the year again, where all our hard training and healthy eating habits we have developed over the year are tempted (generally successfully!) by Christmas lunches, work parties, and family gatherings.
The resistance tends to slide pretty easily, and soon enough you find yourself getting to mid-January and wondering how you could have put on 5kg and can no longer fit into your work pants!

Well, in order to keep our clients and friends happy and healthy over the holiday period, we have developed a list of tips which you can use to minimise the Christmas weight gain, and which will inevitably lead to a successful start on 2011′s fitness regimes!

Christmas Parties

1/ If you are looking at having a big party with lots of alcohol, make sure to eat a healthy meal beforehand (within 1 – 2 hours of the party starting). This will help to line your stomach, which will limit how much alcohol you will absorb into your blood stream, and will also limit the chances of over eating at the party.

2/ Dance! Dancing burns calories, and so make sure to get up and get moving! If you are not generally a dancer, just standing tapping your foot or swinging your hips is better than sitting on a chair doing nothing at all.

3/ ‘Sober hour’. Set a reminder or alarm in your phone for a time when you believe you may have had enough to drink (e.g. 10.30pm), and when this alarm goes off you commence ‘sober hour’. This hour is where you can only have one alcoholic drink for every three non-alcoholic drinks consumed. Mitise Health recommend water as your non-alcoholic drink of choice, but sugar free soft drinks and juice are also allowed.

4/ Rest early. Set a time limit before you leave of how late you are going to stay out, and stick to it. The less time your body sleeps at night the less chance you will have of waking up refreshed and not hungover. The reason for this is that your body goes through physiological repair during the night hours, when cortisol (a stress hormone) levels are at their lowest.

5/ Exercise! Exercise on the day of the party, preferably within a couple of hours of the party start. This is great because psychologically you will be feeling fitter, stronger and healthier, and will be less inclined to overindulge and ruin your good work!

Christmas Day

1/ Eat small. Instead of loading up your plate with one big serving of food, have a few smaller portions. This way you will stretch your eating out over a longer period of time, giving your brain time to catch up with your stomach, so you won’t end up with that bloated, heavy feeling.

2/ Talk! Now you may not always enjoy who you will be talking to, but talk nonetheless. Talking stimulates brain activity and facial muscle movement (which in themselves help to burn calories) but will also slow down the rate at which you eat your food (giving the same benefits as 1/, above).

3/ Limit sugary foods such as lollies and chocolates and instead focus on the meats – the turkey, the chicken, the ham etc… The proteins and fats contained in these foods will help stimulate satiety sooner, meaning you will feel fuller for longer, and will be less likely to overindulge on the bad foods! Remember, your brain doesn’t have a mechanism for telling you you’ve had too much sugar (hence why you can eat a whole bag of lollies or packet of Tim-Tams and not feel full), and so it is up to you to monitor your sugar intake!

4/ The ‘quarter carton’. If heading out for a Christmas Day lunch, be sure to only pack a 6pk of drinks instead of a carton. This will lead you to drinking your drinks slower and more cautiously, limiting how quickly the alcohol can hit your bloodstream. For the ladies – take a spritzer to mix with your wine, as this will help to dilute the content of each glass, once again limiting how much alcohol you will be absorbing.

5/ Water wise. Always have a bottle of water handy, and about 20mins before the food is served, drink about 200ml (one glass). This will lubricate your gut wall, making food absorption easier, but will also pre-fill your stomach, once again leading to a limited potential for overeating.

6/ Listen. Last but certainly not least of all, be sure to listen to what your body is telling you. If you are feeling bloated, tired or jittery, you have most likely indulged in too many simple carbohydrates and sugary foods, so take a break for a while and drink some water, engage in some conversation and let your food digest.

By following some, if not all, of these little Mitise Health Christmas tips, we can guarantee you will get to January feeling fit, healthy and ready to tackle the New Year in style!

Have a very Merry Christmas,

Josh