Surviving Christmas - so much food, so little exercise?

 Christmas can be difficult – but we can help you.  

Such a lot of food – so little exercise – do you look forward to these days (seems like 5 of them this year!) or do you dread them – fearful of what they will do to your body?  

At Forefront Fitness we think it’s all about balance.  

It’s about admitting that Christmas day might be a blow out but we can reign it back in on Boxing Day (and go for a walk!).  it has been a difficult year – be kind to yourself and do the best you can.

Five gold rings (sorry – rules) 

• Don’t count the calories – just counting random calories won’t really help– you could eat your daily allowance in Mars bars and that won’t help you to mange your weight (nor your blood sugar!)  Aim to make every calorie count – so before you eat something consider; - is this going to do me any good?  If not – don’t eat the whole packet! 

• Eat your veg – those dreaded Brussel sprouts that haunt our Christmas plates are actually really good for you.  Eat plenty of green veg, top up with carrots and any amount of good salad veg and then you can go steady on the sugar laden fruit but still get your 5 a day

• Make it yourself – whenever possible, cook from scratch. That way you know what is in it and how its been cooked.  Heavily processed food (think take away and ready meals) are OK once in a while but the bulk of your food should be stuff you have made yourself with fresh ingredients.  

• Choose protein – eggs, meat, fish, beans and pulses are great sources.  Protein is essential for building and maintaining muscle mass.  Try to eat protein every mealtime and you may find that you need fewer carbs.  Having said that – we all need carbohydrate but go for the complex (slow release) variety, not the sugary quick fixes.  So, keep off the biscuits, cakes and sweets; avoid white bread, rice and pasta and try porridge, sweet potatoes and butternut squash.

• Eat some fat – gone are the times when we all avoided fats – what we need is a portion of the ‘good’ fats everyday.  You can get those from oily fish, nuts, seeds and olive oil.  We need these types of fats to fully metabolize all the nutrients contained in the other foods that we eat.  Oh – and please avoid ‘low fat’ options on foods – usually these are over processed and have added sugar to make them palatable.  

So Christmas need not be a disaster – remember portion control and go light on the Quality Street and all will be well (as long as you don’t go overboard on the booze!!)  Let’s face it – 2021 has got to be an improvement on 2020!