Getting ready for the New Year: how to avoid overeating during a festive feast

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

I think this topic is relevant for many. In order not to frantically search for “how to lose 5 kg in 5 days” after the holidays, you need to keep yourself and your relatives in hand. This is especially true of close relatives, since so far I do not know a single mother or grandmother who would let her thirty-year-old child go hungry from the table.

Endless salads with mayonnaise and sour cream, meat in huge quantities and, of course, a lot of pastries. With a standard assortment for our New Year's table, even if you just try a little of all the dishes, it will be difficult to get up from the table. Therefore, you need to prepare for this in advance. That is, not to stretch the stomach, but to train an iron will and an unyielding facial expression;)

The tradition of dense Christmas and New Year's feasts has its roots in the past. Our great-grandfathers fasted before the great holiday, respectively, already for the holidays themselves they replenished their reserves.

In times of shortage, normal champagne, sweets and other worthy dishes a simple Soviet citizen could only afford on New Year's Eve. But you and I live at a time when any product can be on our table at our request. And the habit of stuffing their bellies at New Year's feasts has remained.

Reduce the number of meals

When you are the host of a feast, this is fairly easy to do. It is much more difficult when you visit relatives. In this case, you just need to control yourself and pretend that you have already tried everything. If you are preparing for the arrival of relatives, and it is customary for them to have a lot of things on the table, use a simple trick - divide one dish into several plates. Then you can create the appearance of abundance without overeating.

Drink a glass of water 30 minutes before the meal

When you come to visit, ask the hosts for a glass of water - this will reduce the feeling of hunger. And remember that the feeling of fullness occurs 20 minutes after eating.

Bring wholesome and healthy food with you

I prefer to eat salads without mayonnaise. If the recipe requires it, I try to cook it myself. But our relatives do not agree with us in this. But they love it when we also contribute to the New Year's table. Therefore, we either bring something from our diet with us, or I come early and help prepare more healthy and interesting dishes.

Practice thoughtful food

That is, don't just fill your stomach. Try to eat slowly in order to experience all the flavors. In this case, you will eat less and you will be able to feel full on time.

Praise food during a feast

So, first of all, you will eat less, because in addition to chewing, your mouth will be busy with another important thing - singing a laudatory ode to the chef. And secondly, you will win the favor of the one who cooked. Here it is better not to follow the standard rule "when I eat, I am deaf and dumb".

After the festive table, have a cup of espresso

Even if you are not a fan of coffee, you should not refuse a cup of espresso after a hearty meal. Coffee contains chlorogenic acid, which aids digestion, slows down the release of glucose into the blood and reduces fat production. If, for some reason, you do not drink coffee, you can replace it with a cup of green tea, which is also known for its metabolic properties.

Follow the rule of three bites

No matter how delicious New Year's treats are, try to put just a little on the plate. After three bites (spoons, pieces, etc.), the sensitivity of our food receptors becomes dull and we no longer feel the divine taste of the dish. Therefore, you should not impose a mountain of your favorite salad on yourself. You will enjoy the first few spoons, and the rest will already be absorbed as "hay".

Limit your alcohol intake

Alcohol in large quantities is not only bad for our thinking ability, but also has a number of negative properties that prevent weight loss. On the one hand, it increases our appetite, and on the other, it reduces the body's ability to burn fat.

Ask for dessert to go

Now your family lunch or dinner is over and you are sitting with a feeling of accomplishment and a full stomach. You think that you have fulfilled your filial or daughter's duty and you can safely get up from the table. But it was not there! Chances to get away from "and tea and cake ?!" usually almost zero. And if you don’t try, you will get in response “but yesterday I rolled out cakes for Napoleon and baked them until three in the morning!”. Naturally, you are unlikely to find arguments against this.

A great option is to ask for sweets with you. And if you also add something like “Come on, I bragged to my friends that my mother was making the most delicious Napoleon in the world, and promised to treat them”, earn tears of affection and an extra piece of cake to load. It is really inconvenient to refuse, and by asking for dessert with you and praising the hostess, you will not offend anyone. In the end, she could really stand in the kitchen until three in the morning, and friends will come to you anyway for tea.

Set the table in Italian style

Italians don't put all the dishes on the table at once. They bring them in turn. First, aperitifs and salads, then something denser (pasta), then meat, then dessert.

In this case, guests have the opportunity to always ask for additives if they liked the dish very much, or stop eating. Usually, putting all the dishes on the table at once seems to indicate that you are hoping that all this will be eaten. Some guests are just embarrassed to refuse, even if they didn't really like it. They will continue to eat so as not to offend the owner.

Lead an active lifestyle

Don't get hung up in front of the endless TV New Year shows. On New Year's holidays, so many films and entertainment shows are shown that you can sit in front of the TV all the holidays without getting up. And if you combine this with constant feasts and food in front of this very TV (while watching TV, a person eats 40% more), then extra pounds are provided to you.

Holidays are not a reason to postpone your workouts (many sports clubs only have a weekend on January 1). Visit friends, walk together around the New Year's city, go ice skating and sledding, if the weather permits. And if not, then in any city there is an indoor skating rink that operates 11 months a year or a rollerdrome and go-karts in large shopping centers.

New Year's holidays are a great occasion to see your friends, visit relatives, have a delicious meal and generally have a good time. Keep yourself in control and, just in case, remember that one slice of cake costs about four kilometers of running at an average pace of 5.5 minutes per kilometer;)