Christmas is a time for gifts and lounging around all day. It brings family and friends together and there’s always great food that needs eating. During this joyful season, we end up eating lots of fan-favorite Christmas foods like gingerbread cookies and your grandma’s famous eggnog to name a few. But, by the end of the night, your pants might feel a bit too tight from the evening’s feast—and you’re not alone. Many people experience weight gain during this merry season.
According to a study by the New England Journal of Medicine, Americans notice their weight increase by 0.2% during the Thanksgiving holiday and 0.4% over Christmas. Yikes! If you’ve been trying to lose weight and want to prevent overeating or weight gain during the holidays we have just the tips for you.
We spoke with Dana Ellis Hunnes PhD, MPH, RD senior clinical dietitian at UCLA Medical Center, assistant professor at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and author of Recipe For Survival about dieting during Christmas. Hunnes speaks about unhealthy Christmas dinner favorites, a weight-loss-friendly meal for Christmas, and dieting tips for the holidays.
Avoid processed high-calorie foods.
A lot like Thanksgiving, Christmas dinners typically feature a roasted bird (usually turkey) as the main dish with gravy and classic appetizers. And what’s Christmas dinner without the delicious side dishes? Hunnes says most of the time these dishes are high in calories, fat, sodium, and refined carbohydrates.
“Mac and cheese is not a healthy food as it’s highly processed pasta and extremely high-calorie/saturated fat cheese,” she says. “Mashed potatoes and stuffing also tend to be high-calorie foods that don’t have a lot of nutritional value.”
But, there is one treasured main course for the holiday that differs from Thanksgiving: the Christmas ham. Although it is definitely sweet and tasty, Hunnes says, “Honey ham is unhealthy as it is a processed meat that may have “smoke” flavor/nitrates/nitrites in it.” Meats in general are known to be inflammatory.
Desserts are no different: “Depending on the dessert, some of those are not so healthy as they can be made [with] corn syrup or have as many calories as an entire meal,” Hunnes says. And, what about drinks? “Nog is not healthy and is often extremely high in calories (cream/sugar/alcohol),” she says. Say it ain’t so!
Make healthy swaps and minimize portion size.
Losing weight is hard enough on a regular day. Try shedding pounds during the holidays with all these high-calorie meals and family pressuring you to overeat. But there’s good news. There are some simple changes and healthy swaps you can make to your Christmas dinner to help you lose weight. Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean you can’t find low-calorie recipes that are sure to become future holiday traditions. Hunnes has some ideas!
“For a weight-friendly meal around Christmas, I would suggest starting with a side-salad lightly dressed, steamed green beans, or green-bean almondine (steamed green beans w/ almonds), yams or roast potatoes (yams are much healthier with their high levels of beta carotene and fiber), cranberry sauce (homemade preferred because you can lower the sugar amount used (rather than store-bought which might have high-fructose corn syrup), and then limited/small portions of stuffing, mashed potatoes, turkey (I prefer a plant-based meal w/o meat, but realize I’m in the minority), and any other heavy/creamy sides in small doses,” Hunnes says.
This meal plan is diet-friendly because you can still enjoy all the foods that make a Christmas dinner but you can eat healthier, low-calorie food options that are full of vitamins and minerals!
Bottom line.
Ultimately, it’s the holidays. You deserve to relax and enjoy a meal with friends and family without worrying about weight loss. “I recommend that people NOT focus on weight loss during the last few weeks of the year and instead focus on overall health, wellbeing, and mental health,” Hunnes says. “This means, instead of beating yourself up about not losing weight during that time, just aim to not gain weight; and, if you do, don’t just give up on yourself.” We think that’s a great way to look at it!
