As awesome as Christmas is it is no secret that the season brings a multitude of food and activities that doesn’t do your waistline – or health – any favours.

So, to help you through the festive period we have pieced together this little blog post to offer some guidelines.

1. Keep to your routine as much as possible: we completely understand that it’s nice to kick back and relax a little over Christmas; spend time with friends and family, maybe a cheeky lie in, a few drinks here and there, but you must try to keep up with your regular routine as much as you can. If you spend a week of lying in front of the TV shovelling chocolate into your mouth, come January, it’ll be a gazillion times harder to restart ‘normal’ life. Set aside some time for the things you don’t normally get chance to do (or you wouldn’t normally do) but try to maintain being active, eating healthy and preparing for 2017 otherwise it’ll be a massive shock come the New Year – which will result in short lived New Year resolutions.

see below for more details on this food triangle!

2. Keep right with your food choices: this food triangle is a great way navigate through your food choices. The more you eat from the top and then the right, the better it is for your health. Eat plant-based when you can and when dishing out your Christmas-sized portions opt for more veggies and potatoes instead of extra slabs of meat. It’s obvious that mince pies, tubs of chocolate, bottles of beer and the like aren’t good for you, so consume them at your own peril! All of foods from the top and the right side are full of essential nutrients. There are plenty of cook books to help you utilise veggies and fruit in exciting and beautiful dishes – veggies aren’t supposed to be just boiled into mush! Look at the Thug Kitchen cookbook or search YouTube for ‘Vegetarian/Vegan‘ recipes to brush up on your veggie cooking skills.

3. Exercise can simply mean being active: you don’t have to take part in 57 gruelling kickboxing classes a week or punish yourself on long runs to stay healthy over Christmas. As long as you’ve banked a good portion of training before Christmas, having a week of family walks in the woods, running with the dog, the odd DIY project (groan!) or a quick exercise circuit at home will suffice. Christmas is a time for family and friends, so don’t feel guilty. Being active with a quick round on the home punch bag or wrestling with the children will be enough to keep you ticking over.

Final word: with regards to being healthy, remember, the more you do the unhealthy things (bad diet, junk food, excessive drinking, late nights, lazing around) the harder it will be to turn things around in the New Year, so find a happy medium. Stay active, but have some down time with family. Eat clean, but enjoy the odd piece of chocolate if you so wish. Try to refrain from doing the unhealthy things in excessive amounts.

Have a great Christmas and an awesome New Year!

*Food triangle by Ray Cronise: http://hypothermics.com/home/ – be sure to support him!