5 Tricks to creating a healthy Christmas buffet

         Maintaining your weight loss management programme can be hard during the seasonal holidays, especially at Christmas. Faced with the prospect of having to throw a Christmas party and feed more than your immediate family - how can you possibly modify your Christmas diet without affecting everyone else?

If you too are facing this struggle, then the following tips could help. Designed with your Christmas weight loss in mind, by simply incorporating the following tips into your Christmas diet, you too can remain in firm control of your weight loss during this holiday season and ensure you, your family and your friends experience a healthy Christmas.

1. Swap salted peanuts for raw nuts and seeds – almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, brazil nuts, cashews, sesame seeds… all are rich in protein, essential fats and minerals
2. Replace sugar based confectionary with dried fruits – apples, apricots, raisins, banana, currant and figs… not only dried fruits deliciously sweet but they last too
3.  Make open-top mince pies – this will help you to use less pastry, instantly cutting your fat and calorie content in half. Alternatively you can opt to use filo pastry which is thinner and lower in calories compared to traditional pastry. Another clever trick is to add finely chopped apples to the mincemeat. This will make it fluffier and will lower the mince pies overall calorie content.
4.  Don’t do pigs in blankets – instead grill/ bake the sausages in a wire rack to let the fat drain off
5.  Choose tomato-based dips – avoid any cheese dips and instead offer your guests salsa dips or a low-fat yoghurt mixed with chopped herbs

You can also make the following swaps:

•             Mini pastry tartlet (45 kcal) for a mini filo tartlet (30kcal)

•             Breaded chicken bite (40 kcal) for a marinated chicken bite (29 kcal)

•             Mini bhaji (64 kcal) for a mini satay stick (34 kcal)

•             30g of ready salted crisps (155 kcal) for 30g of tortilla chips (147 kcal)

•             30g of salted peanuts (184 kcal) for 30g of pretzels (114 kcal)

•             175ml of pre-mixed Buck’s fizz for 175ml for a wine spritzer (2:1 wine and soda water)

The trick to maintaining your weight loss is to sit down, examine what you would normally buy for a Christmas party and swap any high fat/high calorie foods for their healthier alternatives. It may feel like a gruelling process, but it will be worth it in the end.

Similarly don’t be afraid to introduce healthier foods to the table.

Cooking treats and puddings yourself for example can instantly reduce your calorie content, plus enable you to remain in control of exactly what you are eating.

Without anyone even realising it you can offer them a healthier version of their favourite puddings, and keep your Christmas fun, exciting and most importantly delicious.

So give these tricks a try and make your Christmas weight loss completely stress free.