"Party Smart"

embridge.gov.uk

The festive season. Diwali, Christmas, and New Years Eve. The best friends wedding. Your brothers birthday. Not to mention so-and-sos anniversary. And of course their sons 1st birthday! The list goes on and on and on…..and so does the eating, the drinking, the merriment, and the mayhem.


And after a few short weeks you start to notice the not-so-small things. Those jeans that don’t zip up as easily. That dress that now fills out in all the wrong places. The suit that fits a little too snugly. Welcome to the festive season - in which you mourn the loss of your waistline, your 6-pack, and that oh-so-toned butt! So whats a party animal to do?

Not to worry, I am here to help :) Its time to take control ladies and gentlemen. Here are a few simple tricks to surviving this party season with your waistline (and party reputation!) intact



Pre-Dinner Dinner! Want to know where the worst damage from this season of celebration comes from? Steaming hot, usually fried, superloaded with sugar, ghee, cream, snacks aka dinner party meals that are served during this time of the year. Think about it. If you are planning a party inviting 50 odd people who you want to impress, the last thing you are going to offer them is a plate of steamed veggies and salad right?! That’s exactly why you tend to see an assortment of chips, pakoras, parathas, kebabs, and other heavy dishes served at these events. Now, I am not saying be a saint and don’t touch the stuff. Instead,I would suggest, grab a little something light and healthy to eat at home before you head out to the party. Call it a mini-meal, maybe a bowl of sabzi with a little dal. This way you kill 2 birds with one stone: the first being that you don’t attack the buffet the minute you see it (which is usually past ten at most parties) since you are already full from your earlier meal. And when you do decide you indulge a little (and hey we all should since the season only comes around once a year!) you can keep things under control (just one pakora and not 4).Secondly, your stomach is well lined before you begin to drink up.


Liquid Diets – Which brings me to tip number two. If eating out is the cause of your greatest downfall in this season, then drinking is the sneakiest, most stealthy adversary out there. To tell the truth, most of us would never have guessed that even if you are balanced with your eating, and carefully watch what you fill your plate with at parties, you can often get more calories from a couple of drinks than from all that stuff on your plate. Shocking, but sadly, true girls and boys. Hard alcohol, particularly whiskey, vodka, and rum, can all set you back a couple of hundred calories per drink. In contrast, beer and wine are lower in caloric count. So beware of any cocktails that sound like they belong in a travel catalogue “Sunset in Paradise” or have multiple alcohols “Long Island Iced Teas”.while they may look like the prettiest and taste more like dessert than drinks, they are most often loaded with sugars and syrups, and usually the culprit for getting a little “too happy”.

An Active Social Life – I like to think of the famous quote “work hard, party harder” and tweak it slightly to make it “party hard, work out harder” :) this ones a no brainer people. In order to stay in somewhat decent shape through the season of overindulgent, utterly decadent, over the top parties, you need to literally put your back into it! So get yourself into those walking shoes and get your morning jog, power yoga class, gym hour, kickboxing going in high gear and combat those killer calories coming your way!