It may be a cliché, but the festivities really wouldn’t be the same without all that seasonal food and drink. At the time, it’s easy to convince ourselves that a couple of chocolates, a few more spuds or a dollop of brandy butter won’t hurt. After all, it was Christmas!
However, those extra pounds we put on every December could take longer to shift than we realised. Research has shown that that extra helping of Christmas pud could take a whopping three months to shift.
The study, for MSN, learned that, during Christmas lunch alone, with an average of up to three servings, we down 2,300 calories in one sitting. That’s 115% of the recommended intake for women or 92% for guys, without counting other things we may scoff on the day, including all those nuts, chocolates or alcoholic drinks.
We know calorie counting is no fun when you’re celebrating but one portion of Christmas pudding with a dash of cream tips the scales at 450 calories. And who can resist the odd sweet when dinner is over, or while settling down to watch the Strictly Christmas special? But just 10 choccies can ‘cost’ you 400 calories.
Of course, you can try to indulge in moderation and enjoy your food slowly, taking time to savour all those seasonal flavours.
But, in truth, most of us are likely to put on at least a few pounds over the festive season. The good news, though, is there’s lots you can do to shift them quickly once it’s all over:
• Get a pedometer: Burn off those 10 chocs by walking 10,000 steps. You may surprise yourself by how little you walk, so put your best foot forward!
• Get dancing: Got a party to go to? Dance energetically for just an hour and a half and you could burn off that portion of pudding. Or join the Zumba dance craze, sign up for a class and have so much fun it won’t seem like working out.
• Hit the shops: The sales can help you on the scales! Pound the High Street, stay standing, carry your own bags and don’t linger over endless lattes and you could work off 180 calories an hour.
• Join the children’s games: Help assemble toys, pick up children, be active and run around with them.
• Join a box fit class: This high intensity aerobic workout is great for losing weight, burning calories and losing weight, and provides an efficient workout. And, like Zumba, it’s brilliant fun.
• Go skiing: You could always follow up the festive season with a short break to a ski resort to banish the winter blues and enjoy the fresh air, scenery and healthy exercise when going skiing. Working your lower and upper body, you should burn off over 300 calories an hour.
You’ll enjoy your break more if you get fit in advance using some of the methods mentioned above, too.
“Even if you snowshoe slowly—about two miles per hour—your caloric expenditure will be about eight calories per minute, or 480 calories per hour,” says Declan Connolly, director of the human performance laboratory at the University of Vermont in Burlington.