Enjoy Christmas without losing your good habits

The tricks to cut calories during Christmas, avoid overeating, and not gain weight are essential if you are one of those people who draw a red circle around January 7th in your newly opened planner with the phrase: 'today I start a diet' followed by 4 exclamation marks. You are not the only one. Spaniards gain an average of 3 or 4 kilos during the holiday season. However, we are giving you the definitive tricks to not gain weight at Christmas.

The culprits? The list is as extensive as it is 'irresistible', but there is a way to survive the holidays without adding grams to the scale and without stopping to enjoy the pleasures of this time of year. At Beldon Beauty, we know how, and we don't want to stop sharing it with you.

WHY DO WE GAIN WEIGHT AT CHRISTMAS?

Do we really need to remind you?

• A minimum of three nights out—dinner and drinks included—with friends.





• Two unavoidable work commitments that involve appetizers, two starters, a first course, a second course, dessert, coffee, pastries, and liqueur.





• Christmas Eve dinner, which directly threatens the idea of 'breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dine like a pauper.'





• Christmas lunch—lamb included—when we haven't even digested the excesses of the night before, which ends at 7 PM—at the earliest—after clearing the tray of marzipan and nougat.

Your body is screaming for six days of fasting until the next special date, but the 'unofficial' commitments mentioned above don't allow it.

By December 31st, we can't fit into the dress we bought for New Year's Eve—obviously—and there is still the New Year's lunch, the 'roscones' (kings' cakes), and Three Kings' Day.

Described like this, gaining 'only' three kilos seems like almost a miracle, but we have clients who follow our advice year after year and reach the 7th of January at the same weight. Pay attention to our tips.

TRICKS TO NOT GAIN WEIGHT AT CHRISTMAS

The magic word is 'compensation.' And no, we are not talking about going on a strict diet, but taking advantage of the days without mandatory gastronomic plans to cut up to 400 calories a day without hardly noticing it. Here is how it's done:

1. Switch to the whole-grain version. Bread, rice, pasta... and not just because they have fewer calories, but because they are more satiating—their digestive process is slower—and you will eat a smaller quantity.





2. Fruit in the mid-morning and gelatin in the mid-afternoon. You can save up to 200 calories by replacing your usual snacks with a diet gelatin—barely 10 calories—and a piece of fruit in the morning.





3. Whenever you can, crudités. Every spoonful of oil you use to cook has 108 calories. But in addition to the caloric savings, raw foods are harder to digest and make the digestive system work extra hard.





4. The 'zero' life. Sodas, beer, candies, nougat... look for the word 'zero' on the label to save calories without hardly realizing it.





5. No bread. You can have it at breakfast, but skipping it at lunch and dinner allows you to save up to 300 calories.





6. Use a dessert plate. Reduced portions allow you to consume up to 30% fewer calories per dish. And you surely won't be left hungry.

TIPS TO AVOID OVEREATING AT CHRISTMAS AND NOT GAIN WEIGHT

Each Christmas feast has between 2,000 and 3,000 calories. Practically double the total intake when following a low-calorie diet. One should try by all means that these culinary appointments do not exceed 30% of the total daily caloric intake. You don't need to take a calculator to the table. In general terms, try to ensure that each dinner or lunch does not exceed 550 calories.

What if you skip the appetizers? Often we arrive at the table completely satiated and with quite a few more units of alcohol than recommended in our system.

If social etiquette doesn't allow you to arrive late, set a limit on drinks and opt for protein-rich appetizers like ham or olives, and forget about the bread.

If you are the host, it's easier for you. Do all your guests a favor by replacing pâtés, sauces, chorizos, salchichón (cured sausage), aged cheeses, and fried snacks, rich in saturated fats (from 310Kcal to 560Kcal per 100g), with seafood or lean cold cuts (from 100Kcal to 180Kcal per 100g).

Reduce alcohol consumption. A 100ml glass of white wine contains 95 calories and red wine about 75 calories. A glass of beer contains 95 calories and non-alcoholic beer about 48. Have you done the math? If you're not careful, you will have 'drunk' the total calories reserved for the entire meal. It is advisable to avoid spirits, which are very caloric and require a lot of liver detoxification work. The right dose? "Two glasses of wine for men and one and a half for women."

Small tricks that cut calories. Not adding more salt to dishes—which will also make you retain fluids—asking not to be served bread, leaving sauces aside, or removing the skin from turkey, chicken, or lamb, which are loaded with saturated fats.

Do you really feel like dessert or attacking the nougat tray? We do it out of inertia, but if we listened to our stomach, we wouldn't even get close and would go straight to coffee. For every 100 grams of nougat, we ingest around 500 calories, and a single marzipan has around 100. If there is no way to resist, it's better to do so at lunch and take them out of sight during dinners.

Try new menus. Fish and roast turkey or lean sirloin provide healthy proteins and less fat than roast suckling pig or milk-fed lamb. There is also no Christmas law that forbids skipping the first course and making a good salad to accompany the main courses.

Copious dinners? Try to ensure at least 12 hours pass between the time you finish and breakfast. This way, the body will draw on reserves, avoiding weight gain.

Instead of endless after-dinner conversations... Exercise! Nothing like walking for at least an hour after eating instead of falling asleep on the sofa or extending the meal with drinks. If you exercise regularly or go to the gym, try to increase your effort a little during these three weeks to compensate for the extra calories.

SUPPLEMENTS TO THE RESCUE

In addition to the tricks to cut calories during Christmas mentioned above, supplements help compensate for excesses, drain, detoxify the body, and facilitate the mobilization of accumulated fat. If there is one time of year when they are especially recommended, this is it. At Beldon Beauty, after performing a free personalized diagnosis, we can 'prescribe' the best help from among our best sellers.

Grascontrol Detox Powder Mesoestetic

An oral supplement that cares for your internal metabolism, facilitating digestive processes in a healthy and natural way. As a result, your silhouette changes, and your skin becomes smoother and more even. Ideal for people prone to accumulating fat deposits or prone to fluid retention.

Body Elixir by Aime

It uses 8 active ingredients, among which green tea stands out for helping to naturally break down fat, birch for its draining, remineralizing, and revitalizing properties, and witch hazel for activating the circulatory system. This complete body elixir also helps alleviate the sensation of tired and heavy legs prone to fluid retention.

Now that you know these tricks to cut calories during Christmas and which supplements are ideal for these holidays, from Beldon, all that remains is to wish you a Merry Christmas!