How do you not gain weight at Christmas?

[malificent7]

It has taken me a year to loose 2 stone...im not tiny bit much happier at about 10 stone 8. Last Christmas i put on half a stone and it took me 6 months to shift.
This Christmas i just want to maintain as much as possible. But i can feel the temptation all around. I love mince pies, chocolate, cheese etc and I don't want to feel deprived. How can i have fun without it piling it on?
I posted here for traffic than weight loss so any tips, recipes etc are most gratefully received.

Get a shedload of fruit you actually like (grapes are good) in, so you have something nutritious but not overly fattening to have when you have a blood sugar dip.

When you see something tempting, cake or pie or whatever, imagine a whole echoing factory full of it. Part of the temptation is that something is rare and special. When you remember it's not, and, moreover, someone is profiting from you eating it, and their accountant would LOVE you to pig out on it, that helps cool the appetite jets a bit.

Alternate between days when you're allowed to have anything you like, and days when you're being very strict and count your calories. In that way your overall calorie consumption stays under control.

@Inthewainscoting

Get a shedload of fruit you actually like (grapes are good) in, so you have something nutritious but not overly fattening to have when you have a blood sugar dip.

When you see something tempting, cake or pie or whatever, imagine a whole echoing factory full of it. Part of the temptation is that something is rare and special. When you remember it's not, and, moreover, someone is profiting from you eating it, and their accountant would LOVE you to pig out on it, that helps cool the appetite jets a bit.

Grapes are pretty horrendous, sugar-wise. Last thing I’d choose!

I’ve recently lost over 3 stone and was also a bit worried about Christmas. I am weighing myself daily and allowing myself the odd treat each day through December until Christmas eg 1-2 chocolates, or a mini mince pie so approx 100 cals daily. Still eating sensibly the rest of the time and maintaining perfectly at that level. I was on a diet last year and didn’t allow myself any special foods so this feels indulgent to me and I’m really enjoying it whilst still feeling in control. I have also made a promise to workout every day, even if just for a few mins. It helps keep my mindset on track and helps balance out some of the extra treats. The only meals which will be relaxed completely are all day Christmas and Boxing Day dinner. Don’t think that will do much harm and maybe 1-2lb gain at the most.

@SSOYS

I normally eat whatever I want on Christmas Day- the trick is not to let Christmas turn into the whole of December.

This! I treat Xmas day and the next couple of days as fest days. Eat whatever I want. But I don't start before Xmas Eve. Whereas I think most of the population are munching on mince pies and chocolates and sipping excess alcohol all through December! I LOVE feasting at Xmas!

It's not Christmas dinner etc that puts on the weight - I actually lost weight one Christmas. It's all the other stuff, chocolate, mince pies, lots of alcohol etc. So don't buy them, or buy fewer of them. And make them last. It's allowed to finish mince pies in January

It helps that I can't drink much alcohol without getting a headache and I don't actually like mince pies!

I find that 16:8 works. I’ve been doing it for a while.

I’m not fond of deserts, Baileys, peanuts, twiglets, Stilton, cake, biscuits, dates, red meat so won’t eat any of that. My downfall is chocolate and crisps. I’m going to buy a fixed amount of those two things next week and when it’s gone, it’s gone. I’m also going to aim for 15k steps daily from today.

I just eat what I want for 3 days (Christmas Eve-boxing day), I don’t buy large amounts of festive food, I think I have bought one box of mince pies, a box of chocolates and some crisps, I will enjoy Christmas dinner without a though 🤣. After boxing day I will be back to eating what I normally eat (balanced diet) and I’m already heavier than I would like, I’m looking forward to rejoining the gym after Christmas.

Like others, I try and stick to my usual calorie intake but for a few days it might be by eating unhealthy food. So if I've snacked on cheese & crackers, had a mince pie and a couple of quality streets, I won't bother with an evening meal. I know it's disordered eating but I think for a few days it's fine (event though I'll moan at the kids and make sure they still have proper meals!)

Oh and I don’t snack on cheese and crackers. We buy a small selection of cheeses to last us Christmas Day and have that for our evening meal, with maybe a little on Boxing Day for lunch if there is any left over.

Personally I'm going to the gym most days, and not bringing in lots of overly tempting things into the house. If they're here, I'll eat them, so we mostly just have what I've put away for the actual Christmas Day. Otherwise I'm trying my best to treat it as any normal time. Having said that, I am having the odd mince pie when someone offers, and so on. So far it's worked out fine. I'm only trying to maintain both my weight and fitness. It helps that I'll be sober this year. New Year's Day will mark one year without booze!

I don't do special Christmas eating. I don't decide that as its Christmas that all bets are off, and go mad with sugary things.
I don't have 'just one' sweet or mince pie because I cannot then find my brakes.
It doesn't ruin Christmas to eat normally and include a nice roast in all that. I just don't eat dessert, I have a coffee with cream instead.
I know i sound sanctimonious and boring but I discovered that I'm a sugar addict several years ago, so for me it's like an alcohol having a drink 'because it's Christmas'. We all know how that ends!

By not making Christmas last for weeks! I'm not very slim and am easily tempted by food, but I've never particularly found that I put weight on at Christmas. I eat and drink what I want, but only really for a few days and usually feel like eating lighter than usual after that. I've never been in the habit of buying in loads of Christmassy snack foods and big tubs of chocolate to eat from the beginning of December or earlier like some seem to.

Also, we don’t have 3 courses for our Christmas dinner, just one course which is a roast with a few extra trimmings. This is all we had growing up and I just assumed that was pretty normal. First year at the in-laws we had starter, dessert, and then chocs and mince pies afterwards.

It also helps that we are both fairly anti social and don’t drink alcohol so no parties etc to contend with

@WayshrineNotFound congrats on one year sober!!

No mindless snacking. I've become accustomed to eating a lot less and stopping when I'm full by eating slower. I lost 2lbs last week despite eating out and having a takeaway, panettone for breakfast twice (don't normally have breakfast) plus several glasses of prosecco across the week. I wasn't calorie counting either. I don't have much left to lose, I was losing my last stone and just have another 3lbs to go now, so I'm not in the early throws of dieting.

@ColdTattyWaitingForSummer Thank you!

24th-26th is eating days here. And then again 31st. Until then if i have something on the rest of my meals that day are porridge to balance it out.
I will be doing extra gym classes in the run up to burn oft some extra calories. Also will be doing a class every day at home apart from Christmas day itself.

Just don't eat most of it

I'm dreadful for Christmas weight gain and need to lose a lot of weight so not the best person. I have found I learned a lot from lockdown and I've been in your position before, not put on extra over Christmas, so I know what works.

Things we're doing.
Not buying treats for the house. We have a cake and 2 packs of mini mince pies. That's it. Sweets and treats are those that are given to us. Buying those big tins of sweets (yummy) is fatal! We have bowls of nice grapes, oranges and some bits to crack but no bowls of delicious peanuts/crisps etc. We Go for a walk everyday over Christmas. I don't eat 3 meals a day over Christmas. If I know I'm having a big meal I usually compensate by having a snack meal. Of it's a mid day meal I rarely eat anything else until the following day.

We don't have all the treats out. After boxing day they get put in the garage and we work through them over the months. We fill up on salad so buffet food is about and on offer but I try to have 50percent salad with it. I also watch the beige. It's nice meats, olives, limited pastries, basically Mediterranean rather than British beige.

Alcohol........it's going to happen but it's not Bailey's, it's prosecco over wine, low fat tonic etc.

Writing this is easy, doing it is very hard. You cannot out run a bad diet. Watch what goes in and make your calories count.