How to Keep Healthy Over the Festive Season

We Over-indulge every year from Christmas to New years…

The festive season is a time of joy and celebration, but also a time of temptation and indulgence. It can be hard to resist the abundance of delicious food and drink that surrounds us, especially when we are in a festive mood and socialising with friends and family. However, over-indulging in food and drink can have negative consequences for our health, such as weight gain, digestive problems, dehydration, and hangovers. How can we enjoy the festive season without over-indulging in food and drink? Here are some tips and strategies, backed by evidence from scientific research, that can help us moderate our consumption and maintain our health.

Eat Mindfully

One of the keys to avoiding over-indulgence is to eat mindfully. Eating mindfully means paying attention to what, how, when, and why we eat, and being aware of our hunger and fullness cues. Eating mindfully can help us enjoy our food more, eat less, and feel more satisfied. Research has shown that eating mindfully can reduce binge eating, emotional eating, and food cravings, and improve weight management and metabolic health.

To eat mindfully, we can:

• Eat before we go to a party. That way we won’t be super hungry and we’ll be less likely to over-indulge. Only eat when we’re hungry or at a designated meal. Mindless eating just because food is there means we’ll easily consume too many calories in a day.

• Choose quality over quantity. Instead of filling our plates with everything we see, we can select a few items that we really want to try, and savor them slowly and deliberately. We can also opt for healthier options, such as fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains, and limit our intake of high-fat, high-sugar, and high-salt foods.

• Pause and check in with ourselves. We can take a break between bites and ask ourselves if we are still hungry or full. We can also use the hunger scale, which ranges from 1 (starving) to 10 (stuffed), to rate our hunger and fullness levels. Ideally, we should start eating when we are at a 3 or 4, and stop eating when we are at a 7 or 8.

Drink Moderately

Another key to avoiding over-indulgence is to drink moderately. Drinking moderately means limiting our alcohol intake and staying hydrated. Drinking moderately can help us avoid dehydration, hangovers, and alcohol-related health problems, such as liver damage, high blood pressure, and increased risk of cancer.

To drink moderately, we can:

• Follow the recommended guidelines. According to the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), to reduce the risk of harm from alcohol-related disease or injury, healthy adults should drink no more than 10 standard drinks per week and no more than 4 standard drinks on any one day. A standard drink is equivalent to 10 grams of pure alcohol, which is about 100 ml of wine, 285 ml of regular beer, or 30 ml of spirits.

• Break up the booze. We can reduce the amount we drink by having a glass of water between each alcoholic drink and opting for lower-sugar mixers such as soda water or mineral water. We can also skip other energy-dense drinks like soft drinks and fruit juice and opt for a sparkling water with fresh lemon or lime instead.

• Drink for the right reasons. We can avoid drinking alcohol to cope with stress, boredom, or negative emotions, as this can lead to excessive and unhealthy drinking patterns. Instead, we can drink alcohol for enjoyment and socialization, and find other ways to deal with our feelings, such as talking to someone, exercising, or meditating.

Make Christmas day the only day you over-indulge if you need to!

Having one day throughout the week between Christmas and new years the day you let loose a little bit will help with feeling like you are missing out and you will remind you of why we don’t over-indulge. We need that little reminder as to why we don’t over-indulge all of the time, a reminder of the bloating, gassy, potentially meat-sweats, hangover and lethargy that come with over-eating and drinking.

Simply the body saying we may have over-done it and forcing you to stop and rest, as you need to digest the food and drink that you have just consumed. By having one day where you let loose, you can then feel content, helping you need to make sure that the rest of the week is therefore “back to routine,” where you eat and drink mindfully. Of course, this contradicts the not “over-indulging” part, but sometimes we are not able to stop ourselves and resort back to our base needs and habits, we are only human after all. By making a decision that Christmas day will be the only day you indulge a little bit more, you are setting yourself up to succeed throughout the rest of the week.

The festive season is a wonderful time to celebrate and indulge, but it doesn’t have to come at the expense of our health. By eating mindfully and drinking moderately, we can enjoy the festive season without over-indulging in food and drink all week. We can also remember that the festive season is not only about food and drink, but also about spending quality time with our loved ones, expressing gratitude, and spreading joy. By focusing on these aspects, we can have a happy and healthy festive season.

Until next time,

Take Back Control

How to Make Sure Christmas Doesn’t Break the Bank!

T-B-C Special Christmas Edition

Here at Take Back Control, I have been running around, getting those last minute Christmas gifts and have almost finalised everything for what has to be the best time of year…

But, it can also be the most expensive time of year, if you let it. Which is why this special Christmas edition is going to focus around making sure that Christmas doesn’t put you out financially, leaving you reeling and feeling horrible when that Christmas hangover hits.

We have all been there before, when we wake up on the 2nd of January in the new year and think, wow, where did all my money go?

Or worse yet, you have to deal with paying back a heap of Buy-now Pay-later apps and personal loans, just to get those gifts that make people “feel” like you love them.

So, do you want to know the trick to not breaking the bank at Christmas time?

Ok, let’s see if I can save you a nasty Christmas hangover (and not the alcoholic kind)…

Tip 1: Communicate with Your Family and Friends

Probably the hardest task to do off the bat, because I believe in getting the hardest things done first, the rest is easy after this. You need to have a conversation with anyone who you will be getting gifts this year and having dinner’s, lunches, drinks with on Christmas day etc.

You need to talk to them about creating a budget and planning how much we will spend on gifts or food/drinks etc.

Without having this conversation, and coming to an agreeable amount, Christmas can be difficult.

You need to make sure you ask first, and don’t just tell people what to do, which means getting in early, before people have brought gifts.

Asking simple questions like;

• How much are you wanting to spend on gifts for Christmas?

• How are we pitching in for Christmas Lunch/Dinner?

• Should we just bring our own food and drinks? (Probably the best way to control your own spend)

The best way to do this is through talking with the host of Christmas this year or making a group chat. Having a family group chat can be great for many things, we have one with just my brothers in it, where we ask questions about what is everyone getting for mum and dad etc.

Coming together and discussing it, you learn more about each other and can become even closer because of it.

Tip 2 - Bad/Dirty Santa/White elephant- The game that will save you $$$

The best way to save money I have found, which has become a bit of a family tradition for us over the last three to four years, is playing a game we call Bad Santa Kris Kringle. There are many other names for it, but I will leave a link below for the description of how to play the game.

- How to Play Bad Santa -

In fact, our friends have even suggested it this year, which means rather buying a $30-$50 gift for each person, costing potentially $120 to $200 or more, you can buy one gift, have fun playing the game and enjoy each others company even more.

Let’s quickly do the math, say you have a family of ten, a group of friends that number as 8, that is potentially 16 people that you will need to buy for. Say you have a budget of $30, that is still $480 of gifts you have to buy, but most of the time if we are honest, it is more than $30. $50-$100 each sounds probably about right these days, which could make it a very expensive Christmas ($800-$1,600 just on gifts alone).

Suggesting this to generally the mother, or mother-in-law, because we all know who is boss during Christmas time, will leave you with the highest chance of success for the family.

My friends who suggested it simply created a group chat labelled ‘Friendsmas’ and we even chose a theme for the gift buying.

The game is even fun with kids, but of course, we all know Santa is coming for the kiddos.

Tip 3 - Create a Budget!!

Pure and simply, making sure that everyone is on the same page and knows what the maximum to spend is on gifts and food is pivotal to not breaking the bank over the Christmas period.

My brothers all agreed last week we wouldn’t spend more than $40 on each other this year, and that goes for the whole family now, as cost of living has really hit a few of us in the family.

We are accepting and feel better for communicating it with each other, not to mention, it has brought us closer together, without judgement of one another’s situations.

We are all bringing our own food to our little Christmas get away to Phillip Island for the Harvey family and have delegated roles and spend to everyone for our Christmas Eve dinner for the Perryman/Joyce family.

Tip 4 - Kids Gifts

The hardest part about Christmas has to be what Santa gets the kids for Christmas, and can definitely blow out to be the most expensive.

Setting expectations early is pretty important, as kids will always want more and more. I still remember wanting the most expensive thing in store, until I learned about the value of money.

If you begin buying them hundreds of dollars worth of gifts from a young age, they will always expect more. Therefore, one neat little trick that I remember from my parents is saying that Santa only gives you one gift. Every boy and girl only gets the one gift and of course you can base it around whether the child has been naughty or nice, but that is not the best way to go about it.

Because more than likely you will find Harry, the meanest kid in the school, gets the best presents and then your child will look at their gift and wonder what they did wrong.

Santa could also just get them something small, from the North Pole or something that is truly memorable and magical. You can leave the “big gifts” to those that are from “Mummy and Daddy” or “Mummy and Mummy” etc.

Instead, start teaching your children about the value of family, connections, experiences and place a lower value on material goods. You need to do this from a very young age, and you yourself need to lead by example. If you have all the latest gadgets and the impeccable furniture, your kid will want that too, but even more than that.

Maybe even start getting your children to save up for Christmas if they truly want something big and expensive and tell them you will pay the other half, what a great way to teach the kids the value of money and the time it takes to accrue it.

Tip 5 - Make a list and check it twice!!

I mean the big man himself is a list person, and if it works for Santa, why can’t it work for you too. You need to sit down, write down all the people/bad santa gifts that you are going to buy for and start brain-storming ideas.

Why waste all the time looking around the shops and dealing with the crazed people rushing about, when you can get in, get the thing you have already put down on paper and get out!!

If you are to do none of the above this Christmas, at least do this one, because if you don’t have a plan, you plan to fail!

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Hopefully you can use some of the above to save some $$$ over the Christmas season, even if it is just one of the tips, I am sure it will help.

We have one more blog before the end of the year, maybe two more depending on how much time I can find during the holiday rush.

Therefore, if you don’t read another blog by the end of the year, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

From my family to yours, have a safe festive season.

With love,

Joel Perryman

Take Back Control