Yes, you can feast at Christmas without piling on the pounds
Roast dinners, cheese, chocolate and mulled wine, you can have it all and not put on weight by following these 27 rules.
Weigh yourself every day
Experts at the Birmingham University and Loughborough University revealed in their Winter Weight Watch Study, published in the BMJ, that regular weighing – at least twice a week, but ideally every day – can prevent people from piling on the pounds at Christmas.
Half of the 272 participants were asked to record their weight in November and December of 2016 and 2017, while other participants were not. The scale-users ended the study weighing on average 0.49kg less than the non-weighers, who gained some weight.
“A brief intervention over the Christmas period can help to prevent these small weight gains that accumulate and drive the obesity epidemic,” wrote Professor Amanda Daley of the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University.
Don’t drink coffee first thing
Researchers at the University of Bath’s Centre for Nutrition, Exercise and Metabolism suggest postponing your first black coffee of the day until after breakfast – drinking it beforehand limits the body’s ability to tolerate the sugar in your first meal, slowing glucose metabolism.
A sluggish glucose metabolism can lead to weight gain. “Starting a day after a poor night’s sleep with a strong coffee had a negative effect on glucose metabolism, reducing it by around 50 per cent,” says Harry Smith, a researcher.
Choose dark chocolate over milk chocolate
The reality is that most of us won’t be able to avoid chocolate over the next few weeks. If you choose dark over milk your scales will thank you for it.
Nutritionists at the University of Copenhagen compared the effects of milk and dark chocolate on appetite and found that volunteers felt less hungry and more full after consuming the dark stuff. Even smelling dark chocolate was shown in one study to reduce levels of the hormone ghrelin, which stimulates hunger.
Drink 500ml of tap water before a meal
What scientists at the University of Birmingham term “preloading” with water half an hour before a large meal can help you to lose pounds.
Over a 12-week period they monitored a group of obese patients, half of whom were asked to preload with tap water (sparkling water, sodas or sweetened drinks were not allowed) before main meals and the others to imagine they felt full before eating. At the end of the trial the pre-loaders lost an average 4.3kg compared with 0.8kg lost by the control group.
Pile on the brussels
Sprouts are low in calories and, being a cruciferous vegetable, have been linked to healthier arteries. A study of 133,468 men and women over 24 years reported that eating more foods that are high in fibre but with a lower glycaemic load (a measure of how the carbohydrates in food affects blood sugar) – including brussels sprouts – was associated with greater weight loss compared with eating foods with a higher glycaemic index that were lower in fibre, such as carrots.
Keep up your daily steps
Daily exercise offsets some of the harmful physiological effects of festive bingeing. Adding 45 daily minutes of walking (4500-5000 steps) over the festive period could pay off. In a 2013 study in the Journal of Physiology, researchers at the University of Bath showed how just one week of overeating in non-exercisers led to changes in fat cells that suggested unhealthy metabolic changes. However, another group, who over-ate by the same level yet walked on a treadmill for 45 minutes a day, had stable blood sugar levels and their fat cells showed fewer “undesirable” changes.
Make reduced-calorie mulled wine
A regular serving of mulled wine made with added sugar can contain 210 calories. A reduced-calorie option in Dr Michael Mosley’s Fast 800 intermittent fasting weight-loss plan contains 99 calories per serving. To make six servings place 750ml dry red wine, 1 orange (sliced into rounds), eight whole cloves, two cinnamon sticks and two star anise in a large saucepan, and bring to a very gentle simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and continue to gently simmer for another 15 minutes. “This is packed with resveratrol and therefore antioxidants,” Mosley says. “I’d recommend a full-bodied wine to carry the spice flavour – try a shiraz or cabernet merlot.”
Eat turkey
It has a lower fat content per serving than chicken and a relatively high amount of protein to help with muscle building, maintenance and repair. It may also boost your festive exercise output.
Turkey breast contains one of the highest concentrations of an amino acid called beta-alanine, which has been shown to buffer against the lactic acid build-up during intense exercise that can cause muscles to fatigue. Trials at the University of Chichester’s School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences reported that 150g of turkey meat, roughly the amount in a single turkey breast, increased muscle concentrations of beta-alanine by 40 per cent and led to a 13 per cent improvement in cycling performance in volunteers.
Avoid pigs in blankets
We should all be eating less processed meat. The British Nutrition Foundation recommends substituting sausage-based stuffing for those with more nutritious chestnuts. One pig in blanket has 70 calories. In their Winter Weight Watch study, Birmingham and Loughborough universities warned that you would need to run for six minutes or walk for 12 minutes to burn that off.
Try time-restricted eating
Keeping calorie consumption within a timeline of 8-10 hours – known as time-restricted eating – can help to prevent a late-night splurge.
“Most people will find it very difficult to do any serious calorie-cutting over Christmas,” Mosley says. “But something like time-restricted eating, including rules such as a larger lunch and ending your evening meal earlier, can help, and recent studies have suggested the approach is beneficial for weight loss.”
Go for a walk after dinner
Instead of slumping on to the sofa, take a brisk 30-minute walk straight after lunch or dinner. According to researchers in Japan, reporting in the International Journal of General Medicine, it leads to more weight loss than waiting for an hour or longer after a meal has been consumed before heading outside. In a trial, the study author lost nearly 3kg during one month of walking at a brisk pace just after eating a meal; a volunteer, who walked at a more leisurely stroll, lost 1.5kg in the same time.
Buy an extra bag of fruit
Clementines are low in calories (about 35 in each fruit), packed with immune-enhancing vitamin C and fibre and, what’s more, good for the waistline. A 2015 study that looked at the diet habits of 133,468 American adults over 24 years found that eating citrus fruits was linked to weight loss.
Snack on brazil nuts
As long as you don’t choose the chocolate-coated variety, eating Brazil nuts in moderation could prove to be a blessing for your waistline.
Researchers at San Diego State University asked 22 healthy adults to consume 20g of Brazil nuts (five nuts) or 36g of pretzels – containing the same levels of calories and salt – in addition to their regular food.
Both snacks increased a sense of fullness, yet the greatest reduction in hunger pangs was experienced by the group eating nuts, potentially helping to prevent overeating. While the pretzels caused a blood sugar spike 40 minutes after consumption, the Brazil nuts did not have the same negative effect.
Eat stilton (sparingly)
It’s salty and not low-calorie (124 calories per 30g serving), but you can still eat Stilton and other aged cheeses (brie, mature cheddar and gruyere) sparingly because they are good for gut health. Being fermented, they contain microbes that boost the microbiome and, in turn, increase immunity and benefit all-round health – and a healthy microbiome is associated with a healthy weight.
Make your own fresh cranberry sauce
Fresh cranberries are low in calories (about 22 calories per 100g), so it’s worth including them in your festive meals (provided you don’t go mad with the sugar). A review of evidence in the Journal of Functional Foods reported that adding cranberries to the diet helps to reduce weight gain and deep belly fat. Other researchers reported that cranberries boost cardiometabolic and gut health.
Think twice about that Christmas pud
According to the Winter Weight Watch Study, a small Christmas pud (weighing 450g) contains 1280 calories. Keep serving sizes to no more than 100g each (284 calories) and limit the brandy cream and butter you serve with it.
Limit the cream liqueurs
The charity Drinkaware says that one 50ml glass of Irish cream liqueur contains 175 calories – about the same as a small mince pie. And it’s often automatically sold as a double measure in pubs and restaurants.
Got a sweet tooth? Eat a date
Dates contain natural sugars and are not particularly low in calories – a single Medjool date provides up to 65 calories – yet they provide fibre, which slows sugar absorption into the bloodstream and keeps you feeling full, as well as beneficial nutrients such as potassium, manganese and some B vitamins. Researchers report that dates boost the microbiome, which also helps with healthy weight management. All of this makes them a far better option (in moderation) than the selection box if you seek a sweet treat.
Downsize your mince pies
The British Nutrition Foundation reports that a typical 67g mince pie has 253 calories – and that’s before you add cream. Switch to a mini minced pie (22g) and cut that to 87 calories per serving.
Don’t indulge in festive hot drinks
Resist the temptation to buy a takeaway festive hot drink. According to Action on Sugar, many are so sugar-laden that they contain as much as two or three white chocolate and strawberry muffins or the equivalent of eating 14 custard cream biscuits. A grande-sized Starbucks iced gingerbread frappe contains 366 calories and 32.7g (8 tsp) of sugar, while Costa’s the Purple One latte has 353 calories and 35.9g (nearly 9 tsp) of sugar.
Eat plenty of turkey soup
Mosley suggests making homemade turkey soup packed with vegetables as a nutritious and filling option over Christmas. However, researchers at Penn State University have suggested that any low-calorie soup – those that aren’t cream-based – eaten as a starter can help to reduce overall calorie consumption in a two-course meal by 20 per cent.
Take a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda in water before a hard workout
Bicarbonate of soda is known to buffer the effects of acids in the bloodstream that result in fatigue. It is a popular aid for athletes. Canadian researchers put 11 volunteers through interval-training sessions of 60-second sprints with 60 seconds recovery, repeated 10 times on indoor bikes. The researchers reported in the Journal of Applied Physiology that they found that taking a bicarbonate of soda solution beforehand raised levels of two appetite-suppressing hormones (and reduced hunger) for 90 minutes.
Crack the walnuts
A handful of walnuts a day stem appetite. Obese hospital patients were asked to drink a walnut smoothie containing 14 walnut halves or a placebo smoothie with identical calories for five consecutive days. They then underwent MRI brain scans while looking at pictures of high-fat or low-fat food. In the walnut group there was higher activation of the insula, a part of the brain involved in appetite control.
“Walnuts can alter the way our brains view food and impact our appetites,” wrote the study’s authors at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston.
Aim for at least an hour of activity
Researchers at Drexel University’s Center for Weight, Eating and Lifestyle Science found that among dieters who didn’t exercise the risk of overeating was 12 per cent. Among those who did an hour of daily activity, the risk of overeating (published in January in Health Psychology) more than halved to 5 per cent. For every extra ten minutes of activity there was a further 1 per cent drop in the risk of overindulging in the next few hours.
Limit the roasties
Cooked in goose fat, they are a necessity on any Christmas dinner. In the Winter Weight Watch Study, researchers advised participants to limit the number of roast potatoes consumed. Three large roasties (100g) contain 161 calories, which would need 27 minutes of walking or 14 minutes of running to burn off.
Add cheese to your mash
Yes, many varieties of cheese are high in calories, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be part of a weight-loss plan. Being high in protein, cheese has a low glycaemic index, meaning it won’t trigger blood sugar spikes.
“You can add some high-flavour cheese, such as cheddar, to mashed potato to help to reduce the GI load of the starchy vegetable,” says Helen Bond, a spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association. “That means it helps to reduce the blood sugar spike that can result in hunger pangs after eating.”
Get down and do burpees
They are gut-crunching hell, but burpees (a fusion of squats, planks, push-ups and a vertical jump) were found to be supreme calorie burners in a study by the American College of Sports Medicine.
Performing three sets of 10 fast burpees with a two-minute rest interval in between the sets burnt about 9.6 calories per minute, more than squats and push-ups.
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