Healthy Routines During and After the Festive Season: Here's How
1. Start Your Day with a Protein-Rich Breakfast
A nutritious, protein-rich breakfast provides a solid foundation and keeps your blood sugar levels stable. Starting your day with a breakfast high in grains and sugars can lead to quick hunger pangs and fluctuating blood sugar levels throughout the day. An unstable blood sugar level can have various negative effects on your health, so it's best to avoid it.
Consider making a well-filled omelette with various vegetables and some feta. Prefer porridge? Ensure you add enough protein with (vegan) protein powder, a handful of nuts, and perhaps some hemp seeds.
2. Stay Hydrated
Amidst all the festive joy, it's easy to forget the importance of staying hydrated. However, it's essential for your health, even during the holidays. Always carry a bottle of water with you to alternate alcoholic drinks with water. Tip: Add some Celtic sea salt for extra minerals to stay better hydrated and reduce the risk of a hangover.
It's advisable not to drink too much (water) right before, during, or after a large meal. Drinking dilutes stomach acids temporarily, slowing down digestion and making it more difficult, which is not ideal after a large meal.
3. Moderate Alcohol Consumption or Opt for Alcohol-Free Alternatives
The festive season often revolves around fun, togetherness, good food, and special drinks. However, let's be honest; alcohol doesn't have a positive effect on your health and wellbeing. Prevention is better than cure, so it's wise not to drink too much alcohol. If you do indulge in an alcoholic beverage here and there, support your body with extra vitamin C and magnesium-rich foods. Alcohol increases the body's demand for (among other things) vitamin C and minerals like magnesium.
Fortunately, there are plenty of delicious alcohol-free alternatives available nowadays. Think of refreshing mocktails, refined 0.0 beers, delightful smoothies, and even water with a hint of fruit or herbs. Be surprised and discover the many possibilities to enjoy festively and healthily.
4. Opt for Healthy Alternatives
During the festive season, desserts and (sweet) snacks are often plentiful. Fortunately, there are many healthy alternatives available. Choose, for example, fresh Medjool dates filled with goat cheese or almond butter and some dark chocolate. Or how about homemade poached pears with some Greek yoghurt, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, and a bit of honey? Delicious.
5. Savour Your Christmas Meal
Despite the temptation of all the deliciously luxurious dishes, it's wise to slow down during the meal. Scientific research has shown that eating slowly and mindfully allows our body to send the signal of satiety to our brain. This simple act not only prevents overeating but also enhances our enjoyment of every bite.
6. Balance Your Plate
A healthy Christmas meal is a balanced meal. When serving your Christmas dinner, make vegetables the star and carbohydrates the supporting act. This ensures you still get plenty of vegetables and helps prevent a post-dinner slump. A balanced meal looks something like this:
- ½ plate of vegetables
- ¼ plate of complete proteins
- ¼ complex carbohydrates
- ½ tablespoon of healthy fats
7. Eat Your Christmas Dinner in the Right Order for Stable Blood Sugar
If you're familiar with Jessie Inchauspé from Glucose Goddess (biochemist, influencer, and author of the book The Glucose Revolution), you know that the order in which you eat your meal affects your blood sugar levels. Each bite you take - especially starches and carbohydrates - causes a spike in your blood sugar. The order in which you finish your plate can make a world of difference for your health. It ensures that your blood glucose levels rise more slowly, keeping you fuller for longer and reducing the likelihood of a post-dinner slump.
According to Jessie Inchauspé, the ideal order is as follows: start with fibres and vegetables, followed by proteins and fats, and finish with carbohydrates and starchy products.
8. Get Outdoors and Stay Active
Don't let closed gyms during the holidays stop you. Use this opportunity to motivate your family and be active together. Opt for a refreshing bike ride, a short run, or a fun game of football with your family members. Why not start the day with a refreshing morning walk? Not only will this boost your biological rhythm, but it also supports your hormone balance and ensures you start your day with more energy. Let's go!
9. Try to Stick to Your Regular Sleep Routine
Even after a fantastic evening that ended late, it's wise to get up at your usual time the next morning. Research has shown that having an irregular sleep schedule can lead to poor sleep quality, fatigue, and increased cravings for fatty and carbohydrate-rich products.1 To avoid this, it's important to stick to your usual sleep and wake times as much as possible, even during weekends and holidays.
6 Things You Can Do If You've Eaten or Drunk Too Much
Apart from a festive (Christmas) dinner with multiple courses, the table during the holidays is often laden with various treats to indulge in between courses. Add to that the fine wines, special beers, and conviviality, and you have a perfect recipe to let yourself go a bit more than usual. This constant eating and drinking puts your body and digestion to work. With these tips, you can optimally support your body to quickly regain your balance.
What to Do If You've Eaten Too Much
While our stomach can handle a lot, there is, of course, a limit. During a meal, small amounts of food are transported from the stomach to the intestines. Like the stomach, the intestines also have limited capacity. When the intestines are full, a signal is sent to the brain to stop the release of food from the stomach. This slows digestion and keeps food in your stomach longer, making you feel full, bloated, queasy, or experiencing regurgitation. Recognise this? These tips can help:
- Avoid drinking around the meal. Ideally, wait at least 30 (preferably 60) minutes after the meal before drinking anything. As explained in point 2 above, drinking temporarily dilutes stomach acids, slowing digestion. Still feeling full an hour after the meal? Try drinking fresh ginger tea. Ginger stimulates digestion and reduces bloating.
- Leave clearing up for a bit, as it's important to relax and let your food settle right after a meal. This way, you give your body the space to use all the necessary energy for digestion.
- Take a gentle walk outdoors. Walking and moving (preferably before eating) kick-starts our digestion, ensuring all the delicious food is digested more quickly and doesn't linger in the stomach for too long. So, get outside!
What to Eat or Drink If You've Had (A Bit) Too Much Alcohol
With alcohol, perhaps even more than with food, prevention is better than cure. The effects of drinking too much often become painfully clear the next morning. The well-known complaints after too many drinks are mainly caused by the toxic substance acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde forms when our liver, with the help of various enzymes and antioxidants, breaks down ethanol (alcohol) so it can be expelled. When you've drunk a lot, this acetaldehyde can accumulate, causing the familiar complaints. Had a bit too much to drink yesterday? Here's what you can do:
- Drink a few glasses of coconut water. Coconut water contains five electrolytes that are important for our body: magnesium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, and sodium. Alcohol increases urination, leading to quicker dehydration and depletion of valuable minerals in your body. Our tip: drink two glasses of organic coconut water before bed to support your body.
- Have the perfect hangover breakfast. To counteract the accumulation of acetaldehyde in your body, it needs cysteine. Cysteine is a precursor to the powerful antioxidant glutathione, which helps break down acetaldehyde in the body. Cysteine is abundantly present in egg yolks, probably why a fried egg is often seen as the perfect hangover breakfast.
- Support your blood sugar levels and electrolyte balance. A large glass of lukewarm water with lemon, honey, and a pinch of Celtic sea salt can work wonders. Alcohol also affects glucose production in our body and depletes glucose reserves. To support your blood sugar levels and replenish your electrolytes, a large glass of lukewarm water with lemon, honey, and a pinch of Celtic sea salt before sleeping and upon waking can help you recover faster.
Don't Forget to Enjoy
The holidays should also be a time to relax and enjoy. So don't feel guilty if you let go of your healthy routines for a while. Tomorrow is another day!
Sources
- Kang, J. H., & Chen, S. C. (2009). Effects of an irregular bedtime schedule on sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, and fatigue among university students in Taiwan. BMC public health, 9(1), 1-6.
