So it’s that time of year again. That one where us healthy eaters are in a quandary: How can I get through Christmas without packing on a few extra pounds?
Do you A: Accept that this is the most likely a case, so you get to work early and have a little cry into a pack of mince pies? Then work it all off in the new year.
Or do you B: Come up with a game plan to stick to, allowing yourself just enough of a cheat to keep you satisfied and your Grandma off your back?
This year I am going with plan B. I am no stranger to structuring my week around what I need to eat in order to fuel myself and keep myself sane at the same time. There is nothing worse than starving yourself of your deepest desires (Chocolate) for weeks on end. So I keep to two approaches going either one way or the other, never at the same time: Approach 1: buy a bar of 85% dark chocolate and limit myself to one square in the evening. This dispels any craving I have for my ultimate weakness. The other approach is to not touch chocolate at all until a single designated day arrives. Cheat day! That wonderful, magical day where anything goes.
But here is an idea of the structure of my week, it will be tough, but completely worth it.
Now until the 24th December: Low Carb/High Protein/High Fat intake for 6 days with 1 cheat day.
Breakfast will consist of 4x scrambled eggs with a small amount of butter from grass fed cows. I like to add in some medium fat cream cheese and chives for a bit of extra flavour. This will all be topped with Cayenne Pepper, for a bit of spice to kick start the metabolism. All with a hot cup of black coffee of course.
Lunch will be a low carb salad or left overs from the previous nights dinner. To keep things interesting, I like to add in some home made salsa or guacamole. These easy to make, low calorie additions are amazing at sprucing up an otherwise boring salad.
Dinner will most likely come in the form of some of my favourites with the carby bits replaces with not so carby bits. For instance Spaghetti and Meatballs. I’ll replace the spaghetti with courgetti (spiralised courgette). Or I will make a large pan of my Italian inspired tomato soup. Packed full of flavour, spinach and mozzarella pearls. I’ll post up the recipe soon, so keep an eye out for that.
Snacks, because I’m going to be hungry all of the time I will need to have a few go to snacks for when things get really rough. A lot of dieticians will advise you avoid fruits when on a low carb diet. The natural sugar content naturally drives up the carbohydrates found in fruit, but even in those not so sweet fruits there is a good level of fructose. Which has been said to hurt weight loss. But as this is not my main aim, I will be going with the less carby fruits such as berries and adding lemon and lime juice to my food. Natural yogurt with nuts raspberries and blueberries are always a welcome snack. Then there are the nuts: almonds and brazil nuts. My favourite nuts are Cashews, but they are pretty heavy on the carbohydrates compared to Brazil nuts.
I will be allowing myself 3 cheat days over Christmas: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. But only Christmas day will allow myself to over eat and indulge. So not strictly 3 days of anything goes, but I think it is a good idea to keep an open mind.