Christmas is a great time for foodies, as there’s so much delicious food and drink around and everyone’s up for dessert, nibbles, and drinks. But when January rolls around it can be hard to suddenly stop eating a tube of Pringles a night. Here are some ways you can start getting back on track after Christmas.
Relish the fresh start
New Year’s resolutions have a bad reputation, but there’s nothing wrong with setting them and taking advantage of that new year, new me feeling. You’ve just gotta be realistic about it. 2025 probably won’t be the year you hone an eight pack or become a professional athlete after all.
Set realistic, attainable goals and focus on the reasons you want to accomplish them for a fresh boost of motivation. The hope a new year brings is something to cherish.
Get back to normal as soon as you can
If you’ve over-indulged at Christmas, you’ll be dying to say goodbye to the festive food. What seemed appealing before Christmas can make us feel downright queasy when we’ve eaten our bodyweight in turkey and Quality Street, so if you’ve got anything unopened you don’t want, donate it to a food bank.
Make a meal plan for the first post-festive week where you slowly get back to normal. You may still be finishing off some Christmas food, and that’s fine, but returning to regular healthy favourites can go a long way to making us feel like we’re getting back on track. Just remember that the longer you leave it, the harder it’ll be to stop over-indulging.
Get some activity in
We tend to feel sluggish after Christmas, mostly down to overeating but also because we tend to be a lot less active than usual. It’s great to have a break and you shouldn’t feel guilty about doing so but starting to move your body more when Christmas is done and dusted will help you get back to healthy habits.
If you’re not ready for anything too strenuous, go for a few gentle walks to get back into the swing of things. Exercise releases happy hormones, so you’ll also benefit from that to get you back into the best mindset for weight loss.
Give your body a break
If you’ve had a lot of alcohol over Christmas, give your body a break for a few weeks by cutting the booze out, or if you can’t do that at least cut down so that you’re well within the NHS’ recommended max of 14 units a week, and make sure you have some alcohol-free days during the week.
Cutting out alcohol will give you a chance to rehydrate properly, which you can help along by increasing how much water you drink. The NHS recommends 6-8 glasses of water a day.
Don’t deprive yourself
One thing that makes overindulgence worse is trying to compensate for it by undereating. It might seem like it makes sense, but the thing with bingeing and restricting is that it just makes you more likely to eat more as you get too hungry and want to eat everything in sight. This can quickly become an unhealthy cycle that’s very difficult to break.
Instead, just draw a line under it and nourish your body with healthy, balanced meals that’ll satisfy your hunger. Sounds easy, right? Just try your best and don’t beat yourself up if it takes longer to get back to normal eating than you’d like, just don’t quit.