'Tis the Season to Eat Far Too Much

How many times do you hear yourself justifying that extra mince pie or chocolate orange throughout December with the phrase ‘it’s Christmas’? None of us exactly count all our calories throughout the festive period, especially not when it comes to Christmas Day.

In fact, 70 per cent of us – based on a survey of 2,000 people by Wren Kitchens – don’t even think about how much we eat throughout December, with over half admitting they use the festive season as their excuse to indulge in whatever they want.

You might want to think about what you’re eating and drinking on December 25th, though, as it seems that the average Brit will work through 5,906 calories within the 24-hour period.

This is the equivalent of 26 doughnuts, 32 slices of pizza, 55 two-finger Kit-Kats, 118 chicken nuggets or 131 Jaffa Cakes – all of which you’d never dream of trying to eat!

Starting the day with bucks fizz, enjoying the chocolate coins in your stocking, the full lunch, afternoon snacks, a turkey sandwich or two and a few cheeky tipples all adds up and will mean you’re eating almost three times your daily allowance.

While you probably think that your Christmas dinner is the obvious culprit, it turns out that you will have eaten almost your full day’s allocation of calories before the turkey even gets carved. This is because the morning has barely begun before we’re hunting through the Quality Street for the elusive purple one.

It also seems that the after 12pm rule goes out of the window on Christmas Day, with over a third of those in the UK having a tipple in the morning – which won’t be helping the calorie count.

The good news is, you can burn all those calories off with exercise. You just need to go for an eight-hour run or 21.5-hour walk when you wake up on Boxing Day, it can’t be that hard surely?

While indulging a little is fine just once a year, you might want to think of ways you can cut down on the calories at least a little bit. Try pacing yourself with the sweet treats, refusing the extra slice of Christmas cake and cooking parts of your lunch in a healthier way – such as making crispy roast potatoes in an ActiFry. This way, you won’t need to do quite as much work to get rid of the Christmas weight.