Surviving Christmas without gaining weight: why it's sometimes impossible to stop eating and how to try it

Christmas poses a tough challenge for the cyclist who is preparing for the season's challenges and wants to keep their weight under control. Between company dinners and meals, friends and the marked dates, we indulge in a series of significant binges. However, the real danger lies in all those Christmas sweets that have something addictive that makes us unable to stop eating once we try them. We explain how to curb excesses.

How to maintain your weight during Christmas

There is no more complicated test for the self-control and discipline of a cyclist than having to overcome the Christmas period ensuring that weight gain is minimal. Our eating routines are sabotaged these days by countless meals and dinners that manage to undermine the effort of many months and make us lose those habits regarding food that often take a long time to achieve.

However, if we think about it, the marked dates are just a few days in which going overboard, as long as we compensate with good workouts to keep the caloric expenditure high, are not usually excessively harmful to the figure that our scale shows as long as we have a certain measure during them.

The problem of gaining a lot of weight at Christmas often comes hand in hand with Christmas sweets like nougat in all its variants, chocolates, marzipans, etc. Products that, for some strange reason, incite to be eaten compulsively once we start doing it. As if they contained some kind of addictive substance. In reality, they do, it's something as common as sugar, but in huge quantities.

When we take one of these Christmas sweets, the body secretes certain substances, such as dopamine, which generate a feeling of well-being which encourages us to continue consuming that substance. On the other hand, the feeling of satiety is not generated by the brain until about half an hour after starting to eat so that, in that time, having a product that incites to be swallowed, we can ingest a huge amount of calories in that time.

To aggravate the problem, such a sugar rush in the blood causes the pancreas to secrete insulin to control it and that excess sugar is first stored in the muscles and liver and, when those deposits are filled, it is transformed into fat. The subsequent drop in sugar after secreting so much insulin makes us hungry again, we ingest what made us feel good and the process is repeated until there is no more or we end up bloated.

Obviously, this is not healthy for the body, but done occasionally does not pose more problem than having consumed in a very short time a huge amount of calories that we are not going to be able to spend and that are stored as fats which, repeated during the approximately 15 days that the holidays last, can ruin everything done for many months.

Put a stop to Christmas excesses

To avoid falling into this devouring spiral we must maintain control, firstly, being aware of our objectives and of the great effort it has cost us to achieve the weight we have to throw it all away in a few days. Using a meal recording application can be a good help to be aware of what we ingest and know when to stop.

As we have mentioned, marked dinners and meals should not be a problem. Let's enjoy those endearing moments with the family without worrying, just like we probably do once a week as is usually accepted in almost any nutritional plan. Besides, the habit of eating controlled amounts will make us feel full at the right time and we won't overdo it too much. For these days, it can also help to do a longer or more intense workout so that our daily balance is greater and we have more margin for what awaits us at the table.

The real problem lies in the Christmas sweets and the anxiety they generate. Just like in meals and dinners, nobody tells you to deprive yourself of a few pieces of nougat or marzipan after dinner on those key dates. But, what about the rest of the Christmas days? Nothing better than not buying it to avoid having the temptation nearby, unless we are the ones organizing one of those key meals. In that case, we will acquire just enough, without going crazy.

If despite everything we find ourselves in a situation where we end up eating Christmas sweets, a good trick to stop is to have our toothbrush at hand. After eating a little nougat or whatever, decided before the first piece, we will brush our teeth and, although it may seem silly, avoiding getting them dirty again is a message to our subconscious to stop. Apart from being a recommended practice to avoid the cavities that so much sugar can cause in our teeth.

During these days, when we consume these Christmas sweets, it is inevitable that at some point anxiety will come and our body will ask for sugar, like a kind of withdrawal syndrome. Those are the really dangerous moments. Distracting the mind from that feeling is vital for that critical moment to pass. Some tricks range from starting to do some activity, to having fruit at home and choosing a piece instead of the damn nougat, or much easier, drinking a good amount of water that fills our stomach and gives a feeling of satiety. Without being so extreme, it is also practical at these times to prepare an infusion, which is not going to provide us with calories and yes it is going to take us a few minutes between boiling the water, letting it rest, cooling down a bit and drinking it, enough for the anxiety to go away.

Also, to curb that excessive anxiety to eat, it is advisable to maintain as far as possible our daily nutritional planning, following those routines that we have been getting used to and that will be one of our main weapons to overcome these holidays without having to suffer later what we ate on each slope.