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What to eat this Christmas

Thursday, 19 December 2019 / Topics:

It’s that time of the year again when we’re bombarded with an onslaught of messages surrounding food and diet at Christmas. Articles about how to have a ‘healthy’ holidays, how to not over eat this Christmas, how to watch your waistline this festive season, what Christmas foods to avoid and so on and so forth. With Christmas day just around the corner, a lot of people can tend to feel a little bit anxious or nervous about what they ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ eat at their Christmas lunches and dinners.


With all the worry about food and weight gain, people often forget to appreciate the holiday for what it actually is. Christmas is all about celebration, spending quality time with our loved ones and relaxing, whilst also enjoying the delicious, festive food. There’s so much more to food than calories, nutrients and weight gain/weight loss.  Food brings us enjoyment and helps us feel love and nurtured, it’s about tradition, bringing people together and creating memories.

 

Whilst there are generally plenty of delicious healthy options available at Christmas (fresh seafood, meats, salads and fresh fruits) that help to nourish our bodies, there are many other indulgent foods that nourish us in other ways. For example, there might be foods you’ve loved eating at Christmas since you were a child or foods that remind you of good times spent with family. So if you love trifle, then eat the trifle, and enjoy it! Of course, that doesn’t mean that you should eat it until you feel sick but if you do overeat on Christmas day – that’s okay (and perfectly normal). Remember Christmas is just one day and in the grand scheme of things, one day with a less optimal diet really isn’t going to have an impact on your health. It’s what you choose to do for rest of the year that matters. To put it a different way, one day is 0.27% of the year... Seems pretty insignificant when you look at it from that perspective, doesn’t it? 


The key to maintaining good health is moderation and balance. So enjoy Christmas for what it is and once it’s over get back into your normal eating and exercise habits.

 

Merry Christmas from the team at Sprout!!