Bringing balance into the festive season

When it comes to the holiday season, it can be tempting to let your desire to maintain a healthy lifestyle overrun your ability to enjoy yourself. Unfortunately, for many, this is where diets go wrong. People feel like they need to deny themselves enjoyment, and run the risk of either losing their resolve – or ending up feeling isolated and miserable.

If you find yourself entering a headspace where you are worrying about the festive season and too much temptation, try and take a step back and look at things objectively. Sure, you’re going to want to try and limit the extent to which you indulge, but not at the expense of enjoying the holidays with friends and family. With that in mind, I’ve got some tips that will help you navigate the Christmas break – while still making sure that you treat yourself.

The thing with Christmas is that the season actually starts in November or early December, which means there’s going to be plenty of opportunities to overindulge. If you’re already eating healthy all the time, a few days isn’t going to make any difference to you, so there’s no need to worry. I mean, to put it the other way around, if you ate nothing but fast food for a month and then suddenly drank a smoothie – that wouldn’t suddenly make you healthy.

In saying that, if your Christmas party season kicks in early, you’ve potentially got two full months of excessive drinking and treating yourself to navigate. This is where we can find ourselves moving out of our healthy lifestyle a little bit, so we have to be mindful.

Personally, I find that limiting my drinking days is an effective strategy. Alcohol in moderation is okay, so over the holidays, I try to stick to two days of the week where I drink. That means that if I have five Christmas functions in one week, I'll pick three that I'm not going to drink at. At the two that I do indulge at, I try to stick to two drinks. Alcohol is calorically dense, and when you're drinking a lot you end up overeating – usually foods that are fried or heavily processed.

Another strategy that can work well is making sure you have something delicious and nutritious to eat before you leave the house. At a lot of these seasonal functions, you won’t get to sit down and have a good, healthy meal. More likely, it's going to be all kinds of finger food. Some of them are healthy, but a lot of them are just little canapes. If you’re starving and you’re standing around all night, of course, you're going to be tempted to grab from the plate.

But if you've eaten a gorgeous, healthy meal before you go, you aren't going to be as inclined to overeat. Before you leave, have a meal that’s made up of a lean source of protein, some veggies, and some healthy fats.

Another strategy that’s helpful is to make something that you can bring if you’re attending a family or friend function. Especially if everyone is bringing a plate, then you can make something nutritious – so you’ll know that there’s at least one healthy option there for you.

If you’re hosting an event yourself, then there are so many healthy Christmas recipes available online. We’re almost spoilt with the amount of choice we have. The most important thing is to try and make a lot of your meals centre around vegetables – because you can never have too many veggies.

Remember, on Christmas Day, your plate can look however you want it to. Everyone should be able to enjoy whatever they want on Christmas. I think the most important thing is to make sure you’re not depriving yourself. When it comes to the actual day, I want to enjoy it – and that means, often, I do overeat. I know I am healthy most of the time, so it doesn't matter.

Instead of stressing about what you’re going to eat on Christmas Day, what I’d recommend is getting up and making sure that you get moving in the morning. Maybe you could go for a run with your family after you open the presents or play some sport in the afternoon (which I usually can’t do because I’m too full of Christmas turkey).

At the end of the day, the festive season shouldn’t leave you feeling guilty, but it also shouldn’t leave you feeling deprived. It’s all about finding the right balance for you and enjoying the break.

Laura Henshaw is a student, entrepreneur and model with a keen focus on mental and physical wellbeing. She co-founded Keep It Cleaner, an online health and fitness program, and will soon publish a book designed to encourage young women to live their best lives. The information in this article is general information only and is not intended as medical, health, nutritional or other advice. You should obtain professional advice from a medical or health practitioner in relation to your own personal circumstances.