The morning after the night before, your blood sugar will be unstable, Stephenson points out. From a food- and booze-induced spike, you will now be suffering a dip which will affect your focus, but also your appetite. “To stop yourself anxiously grazing on junk food all day, you want to reset the system,” she says.
“Starting your day with protein, fat and veg will set you up with stable blood sugar throughout the day. Avoid cereal, toast, croissants. Act like you’re eating your lunch for breakfast. Do this and you’ll also get some key nutrients, so if you eat mince pies, pasta and wine later, you’ve already fed your microbiome, and given your body the good things it needs.”
Eat your greens first
“Start your meal with veggies,” suggests Jessie Inchauspé, biochemist and author of Glucose Revolution. “When eaten first, the fibre in the veggies will create a protective mesh in your intestine, slowing down how quickly your blood sugar will rise, then drop – you’ll stay fuller for longer.”
These vegetables can be raw, cooked or dressed. “While there needn’t be a break between them and the rest of your meal, you can eat them up to two hours before if you want,” says Inchauspé. “Either way, they should make up about 30 per cent of the size of your meal, and you can even serve them as an aperitif to your whole party.”
Go for a walk straight after lunch
Gym closed for Christmas? No problem, says Tim Spector, professor of genetics at King’s College London, co-founder of the ZOE project and author of Food for Life. “Walking uses many of our major muscle groups and our muscles use glucose from our blood to move,” he explains.
“If we go for a long walk after a carbohydrate- and sugar-rich lunch we can help our metabolism (that deploys insulin to help remove excess glucose from the blood) to bring our blood sugar levels back to normal range. It also helps our gut to move food through our digestive tract, and reduces the likelihood of bloating and constipation.” To get the benefits, says Spector, walk within an hour of pudding, certainly no more than three hours later.
Organise your pre-party prep
Don’t go out again on an empty tank, warns Lucy Miller, a renowned nutritional therapist based in Bath and London. But instead of pre-drinking (a definite no-no), consider pre-nourishing.
“Before you go out, take protein powder either on its own mixed with water or in a smoothie,” she suggests. “This will mean you won’t arrive hungry and will be less likely to reach for the canapés on offer and should help you make better food choices. I’d recommend Nuzest pea protein.”
Consider a savoury snack too, just... not a fistful of crisps. “Have a boiled egg before you go out,” Miller suggests. “The protein will help stabilise blood sugar, keep you feeling fuller for longer and will slow the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream.” Brazil nuts and cashews are also a good source of protein.
Think 80/20
Dr Uma Naidoo is a psychiatrist, chef, nutritional biologist and author of international bestseller The Food Mood Connection. “In nutritional psychiatry, I suggest following my 80/20 rule, which is that you eat healthy foods most of the time,” she says.
Aim for 80 per cent of your Christmas meals to be made up of wholefoods with plenty of fibre (so: vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains and proteins). If you indulge at a party or a meal, don’t just carry on indulging: “realise that you can correct your course at your next meal by selecting a healthier and mindful option,” reassures Naidoo.
... Or open an ‘eating window’
“Christmas is the perfect time to introduce an ‘eating window’, suggests Dr Saira Hameed, consultant in endocrinology and diabetes at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, one of the UK’s leading experts in weight loss and author of The Full Diet Cookbook.
In essence: “Divide your day up into two periods of time. The first period is when your Eating Window is open and you can choose to eat if you want to – I advise my patients that six to eight hours works well. The second period of time (usually around 16 to 18 hours) is when your Eating Window is closed and you are choosing not to eat. When your Eating Window is closed you can still drink water as well as tea and coffee with a splash of milk.”
Take the big day: “Let’s say Christmas lunch is at 2pm. Instead of eating and drinking alcohol in the run-up to lunch, you can keep your Eating Window closed until the big event,” Hameed explains. “Then if you choose to stop eating by 8pm, you have enjoyed six hours of great eating, safe in the knowledge that once your Eating Window is closed, your insulin levels will start to run low. For the rest of Christmas Day and into Boxing Day, you will now be fat burning.”
Ditch the ‘on the wagon/off the wagon’ mindset
“Don’t swing from all-in-indulgence over Christmas to self-deprivation in January,” says Stephenson. Instead, indulge in a more discriminating way. “If you’ve chosen to indulge, then so what? That’s great. But ask yourself: do you really enjoy the chocolates that you scoop out of the tin every time you pass your colleague’s desk? Probably not a huge amount. On the other hand, do you really enjoy a delicious meal with wine and cake with your friends and family? Absolutely. So cut out the stuff eaten for the sake of it and really enjoy the indulgences that count.”
“Your blood sugar can handle a few big spikes across the Christmas period. It’s creating blood sugar spikes again and again over the period that’s going to make you feel bad, mentally, and put on weight.”
If you’re pickier, you’re likelier to eat higher-quality food too: “Ultra-processed food is designed to be addictive. Food scientists work on the flavour profiles to create that perfect ratio of sweet-salt-fat that makes you addicted. Not only is it going to spike your blood sugar and make you eat way more, but it’s inflammatory.
If you eat a home-baked treat, even if it’s laden with two cups of sugar, it also has more fat in it, more fibre, more real food that your body knows how to process and will keep you fuller for longer.”
