One easy way to achieve this is by walking. By getting daily walks in over Christmas, you'll help to keep your body fat levels down, as well as aiding the digestion of all that shortbread, mince pie and toffee. It's also great for your muscles and a fillip for your mental health during a period that can be quite stressful.
2. Get some rest
As the social commitments pile up during the Christmas and Twixmas period, it's easy to start running a sleep deficit. Keep an watch on your levels of shut-eye and top them up with quick mid-afternoon powernaps if at all possible. Your immune system will be grateful.
3. Skip Breakfast
I'm a big advocate of intermittent fasting, and I feel it has a very timely application over the festive period, when the focus is on lunch- and dinner-time binges. My advice is to give breakfast a swerve altogether and just have a warm drink instead. It's not a licence to eat anything later in the day, but it does mean you give yourself more leeway to take on calories in the afternoon.
Five strategic moves
1. Make red wine your festive friend
Booze and Christmas are as just entwined - it would take a severe voice to suggest that you shouldn't partake in one or the other. A good decision here is to opt for low calorie beverages. This means dropping the beers and anything mixed with cola in favour of drinks like red wine, vodka + soda and whiskey on the rocks, all of which come in at under 100 calories per serving.
2. Enjoy the roast
Roast turkey is actually a pretty guilt free meal as far as festive indulgence goes - all you can really do wrong here is eat too much of it! Yes, parsnips are a bit 'high G.I.' and sweet potato would technically be healthier than roast potatoes, but it is Xmas, after all, and we are essentially dealing with a plate full of lean white meat and vegetables
Tell you what, use grass fed butter as your glaze and we'll say no more about it.
3. Snack on dates and nuts
When the Xmas party food is rolled, try to avoid cakes, chocolates and pastries and reach instead for dates and nuts, which are very high in nutritional value. Dates may contain a fair bit of fructose but its a low G.I. food so wont cause fat gain, while nuts are high in healthy fats and protein and will slow the absorption of the sugar in the dates down even further,
4. Secret Fat Avoidance Tip
Go heavy on the cinnamon. Seriously, it helps to block the surge in sugar after a carb-heavy meal, which means your body is less likely to store the food as fat. A sprinkling in your hot drinks should help.
5. Machiavellian Present Hack
Did you know that the average caloric intake on Christmas day is approximately 6000 calories? Unless you're a professional wrestler, that's almost certainly more than double what you should be having.
The toll it takes on your body is compounded by all the sitting around we do over Christmas. A great little hack to solve this is to buy someone an active present. That way, everyone has to to go out and watch them use it.
For kids, think: bike or skateboard. For adults, why not buy some kind of drone or remote control vehicle? At least you'll all have to get up and get outside to use it.
Five ways to avoid indigestion
Over indulging around Xmas can lead to an energy-sapping bloat. Here are some general tips on how to avoid it....
1. Don't eat foods you know don't agree with you
Seems obvious but so many of us reach for the wrong things when in a party atmosphere, knowing full well we'll suffer from them later.
2. Chew your food
Another obvious one, but being sure to chew each bite of your food thirty times can massively ease the pressure on your digestive system by making the pieces of food far easier to absorb.
3. Don't drink with meals
If you know you tend to suffer with gas and indigestion regularly, you would do well to avoid drinking anything alongside, before, or after your meals.
4. Don't lay down within 20 mins of consuming a large meal
It makes it much harder to digest your food and can lead to heart burn and acid reflux.
5. Pace yourself, you've got all day!
Pace your meals and the treats you'll have after them - that way you are spreading out the strain on your system and you'll have a far better chance of a symptom free day.
Scott Laidler is a film industry personal trainer from London. Visit Scott at www.scottlaidler.com for online personal training and free fitness resource
