Five Dietary Mistakes You Make This Christmas

What are your concerns about the holidays? Overeating, losing control of the amount of food consumed, malaise after binge eating? Nutritionist Anna Reguła tells us how to enjoy Christmas delicacies in a healthy and sensible way.

Old Polish cuisine, in terms of the amount of fat in the dishes or the method of their preparation, is definitely not one of the most dietary cuisines in the world. Most meals contain something fried, most often deep-fried, which makes them quite a challenge when it comes to digestion. So how to approach the topic of Christmas? Lose weight, calculate caloric needs, fast to have more “space” for food, do heavy workouts? About it today in the form of 5 dietary mistakes you make during the holidays.

Mistake number one – on Christmas Eve you fast …

… To eat more in the evening. Thus, the chances of dinner ending in gluttony are more than certain, but this holds true not only on holidays. It often happens that during the day we drink a lot of water or coffee to “cheat” hunger. As a result, in the later hours we experience a hunger attack and clean the refrigerator of all supplies. You have to eat. A rational start of the day with a wholesome breakfast and a light lunch will even make you approach dinner as if it were your next normal meal. Remember that holidays are 3 days! You do not have to eat everything on Christmas Eve, and you overpay it with a bad mood resulting from the feeling of heaviness, and often heartburn or flatulence. Try what you want and leave the next part for the next day.

1. The most fattening Christmas Eve dishes. Real caloric bombs

You count every dumpling …

… So as not to exceed the macro or your needs. Extremes are wrong. Both eating under the cork as if the Christmas Eve dinner was our last supper, and the fear that the dumpling dough is not whole grain, the fish was fried, and the cheesecake contains sugar instead of sweetener. Often, especially people using slimming treatments who do not teach correct habits, and the zero-one approach of “all or nothing” assume that “the macro must match!” and the whole evening they are under great stress with the application calculating the demand so as to estimate how many dumplings they can eat to fit in the daily balance of 1800 kcal. When losing weight, keeping track of the caloric balance is very important, but none of us want to be chained to the calorie calculator for the rest of our lives. During the holidays, you will find intuitive food for your health (certainly for mental health). Do not obsessively analyze every bite, because instead of resting you will treat yourself to permanent stress.

You blame yourself for the extra pounds …

… before the first star appears in the sky. the holidays have not started yet, and you are already reproaching yourself for the difference in body weight. The most important thing, however, is what we eat every day, not from time to time. If you use common sense, even weight gain will mainly mean water, gut content, and glycogen – not the fatty tissue that is immediately visualized in your head. This will be even more pronounced if your plate has a lot of salty snacks with a high sodium content. I guarantee you that everything will return to normal after a few days.

1. How many calories do we really eat on Christmas Eve? This number can scare you

You do hard workouts …

… to deserve food. You do not have to deserve food for physical activity or punish yourself with it after eating something “forbidden”. You need food. A crime is punished, not a piece of sugar pie. This approach opens the door to eating disorders for us. Instead, try to get your loved ones for a family walk.

You forget that Christmas is not only about food …

… Which is only part of the tradition. Christmas time is about baking and decorating gingerbread cookies with loved ones, decorating the Christmas tree together, walking along snowy streets, songs, carols, the smell of mandarins, breaking the wafer or resting.

Summation

When some people are afraid of extra kilos during the holiday season, others are afraid of loneliness, for example. Many people are unable to spend them with their loved ones, perhaps for the first time in their lives. Try not to be too critical of yourself and try to appreciate what you have. For many it can be a dream come true. Diet on holidays? Well, write down the next sentence in a prominent place: the most important thing is what we eat from New Year to Christmas, not the other way around.

Read also:

1. Holidays are allergy sufferers’ nightmare. Even dressing up a Christmas tree can end in shock
2. No wishes, no wafer breaking, or wearing masks? The doctor says what the holiday will be like
3. Christmas Eve dinner at KFC? It’s already a tradition in this country

Three Christmas recipes for healthy sweets

Gingerbreads made of wholemeal flour

Ingredients:

300g of whole wheat flour

200g butter

80g of erythritol

4 teaspoons of gingerbread spice (depending on the type of spice and your preferences)

2 yolks

a few drops of almond extract (optional)

pinch of salt

Execution:

Put the flour, erythritol, gingerbread spice, diced butter, egg yolks, vanilla extract, salt into a blender or blender and mix to a uniform dough (you can also make the dough by hand)

Wrap the dough in foil and refrigerate for approx. 30 minutes. (this step can be skipped if you don’t have time)

On a floured board, roll the dough into a cake about 1 cm thick. Use the molds to cut out the gingerbread cookies and place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper

Bake in an oven preheated to 180 degrees, heating up and down for about 12 minutes, depending on the thickness

After taking them out of the oven, the gingerbreads will be soft and crisp, they should be cooled, put in the fridge overnight and only then decorated with melted chocolate, frosting or special markers available in stores

1 serving (12g) has 53 kcal, B: 1.1g T: 3.6g W: 5.4g

Gingerbread sweet potato cream

Ingredients:

80g baked sweet potatoes,

1 light cottage cheese,

10 g (1 tablespoon) of cocoa,

20g erytrytolu,

30g of soy drink (or other vegetable / regular),

1 teaspoon of gingerbread spice,

½ teaspoon of cinnamon

½ teaspoon of almond extract,

½ teaspoon of salt

for serving: roasted almond flakes, diced dark chocolate cube

Execution:

Blend all ingredients into a perfectly smooth cream and serve with your favorite additions

It tastes best when it is chilled.

The whole has 260,6 kcal, including:

Protein 22,6 g

Fat 7,7 g

Carbohydrates 47,5 g

Tart with chocolate cream on a gingerbread base

Bottom:

200 g of whole wheat flour

150 g butter

1 egg

50 g of erythritol

3 teaspoons of gingerbread spice

pinch of salt

Cream:

375 g light cream cheese (I use Philadelphia, but it can also be different, e.g. Bieluch)

1 bar of dark chocolate

50 g of erythritol

1 teaspoon gingerbread (or cinnamon) spice

pinch of salt

a few drops of vanilla extract (optional)

Execution:

Knead all ingredients on the bottom to a homogeneous mass using a mixer / blender or by hand and cool in the refrigerator for approx. 30 minutes

After this time, put aside about 70g of dough (optional, if you want to prepare stars for decoration as in the photo), and put the rest of the dough on the bottom of the tart and bake at 180 degrees, heating up and down, about 15 minutes. The photo shows a plate with a diameter of 22 cm

Roll out the dough aside and cut out stars, you can bake at the same time as the bottom of the tart, approx. 12 minutes

Cream

Melt the dark chocolate and when it is slightly cool, mix it with 2 tablespoons of cream cheese so that it does not weigh when you add it to the rest of the ingredients

Then add all the other ingredients along with the melted chocolate and blend into a smooth cream, you can sweeten more according to your preferences

When the bottom is completely cool, apply the cream, decorate with stars and nuts. The stars can also be sprinkled with erythritol blended onto the powder.

The whole has 3564 kcal, including 53,2 g of protein, 297,1 g of fat and 328,6 g of total carbohydrates. After dividing the dough into 12 parts, one will have 297 kcal