Wellness Wednesday - Holiday indulgence

It's that time of year again. Even if you aren't going to business lunches or dinners, you're having MORE lunches or dinners with friends and family because it's a festive time of the year whether you celebrate christmas or not. It's holiday time and that means a time of over-indulgence.

If you've read any of my blog posts you will know that the size of your waistline (or mine) isn't really my concern. It's your health I'm interested in. But how do you manage to stay healthy during a time of year when you are bombarded by christmas cake and mince pies?! It's difficult. Especially if everyone around you is convinced that it's mandatory to eat mince pies and christmas cake every day!

There's no reason, to my mind, that you should deprive yourself of good food. I think people tend to make themselves so miserable over holiday time thinking about all the calories they are putting in their mouths and how much they are going to have to exercise in January to work off all the extra weight gained. Seriously, have you noticed how FULL the gym is from January compared to December? You just KNOW that that's all the new year's resolutions about gymming every day and getting into shape. That starts to peter out around the end of February/March;)

Looking after yourself should never be something you set a date for. It should just be a permanent part of your lifestyle. It's actually really easy to do if you know how. The misconception is that you can never eat anything tasty or full of fat again. If you think that, then you would be wrong. What you DO need to watch out for is sugar. I'm talking about bad sugars like refined sugars, especially high fructose corn syrup. It's actually the over-indulgence of carbohydrates that make people gain weight and feel flat and lacking in energy over the holiday season. Things like cakes, biscuits, mince pies and sweets are not going to do you any favours.

Fat is not something you should be avoiding unless it's in the form of vegetable oils. In other words, if you want to use the fat from a roasted leg of lamb, to make a gravy for christmas lunch, by all means, USE it! What you DON'T want to use is a packet sauce that pretends to be healthier because it's "low-fat". I guarantee that powder sauce is horribly bad for you. Here's a look at some of the ingredients you
will be eating if you go with a processed, packet sauce:

Whey, Corn and/or wheat starch-modified, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, salt, nonfat milk, natural and artificial flavors, lactic acid, disodium phosphate, msg, brown 5, brown 5 lake, brown 6, brown 6 lake, silicon dioxide

Seriously... blegh!

I'm making a 2kg leg of roasted lamb for christmas lunch. And I AM going to be using the fat from the lamb to make a gravy. The lamb is free range, ordered from Terre Madre. That means it comes from very happy sheep who meandered around open fields eating a grass diet like they were meant to eat. It's excellent quality and that means it's going to be exceptionally healthy for everyone who eats it, fat and all!

If you don't want to do lamb, try a free-range chicken or free-range pork or beef. Just make sure it's free-range. Take a wander through my archives to find out how to cook a delicious roast chicken. Try to avoid grains if you can. That is what is going to make you feel terrible and put on that body fat that you are trying so hard to avoid. If you are going to eat them, make sure you prepare them properly. There are also some great dishes like this sweet potato bake which tastes more like a dessert and yet is healthy! A nice healthy, TASTY dessert is apple crumble or cranberry pie. If chocolate cake is more your style, try this one. Add some dried fruit to make it more christmassy. There's also banana bread which you can modify and use apple and cinnamon to make it more christmassy as well.

You see, it's so easy to make healthy, DELICIOUS food over the holidays if you allow yourself a bit of extra time to make things from scratch instead of buying ready-made sauces, desserts and other dishes. Holiday time seems to centre around food anyway so why not get the family involved in the preparation and spend some nice quality time together:)

If you live your life with a constant aim towards being healthy, you never have to feel guilty about anything you eat and you won't have to worry about your waistline. To be honest, your concern should be more aimed towards avoiding a dread disease like cancer or type 2 diabetes than it should be towards your waistline.

This holiday season, instead of setting unreal goals, why not make a decision to simply put your health first. It's probably the best decision you will ever make.