Fuel up for Christmas

This is no time for diets, but healthy food choices can keep you energised over the festive season

Christmas is synonymous with the likes of mince pies and gingerbread, pigs in blankets and roast potatoes, mulled wine and eggnog. Most of December is given over to excess – where chocolate for breakfast, courtesy of an advent calendar, makes perfect sense! On Christmas day alone, people in the UK consume, on average, 6,000 calories [1].

Christmas is not a time for diets or restrictions that make you feel miserable. But if you are experiencing perimenopause or menopause symptoms, you may have already made adjustments to your diet – to help reduce triggers for hot flushes, for example, or to help manage your weight.

In a survey for Newson Health, two thirds (68 per cent) of women said they had gained weight since the start of perimenopause or menopause [2]. A third (35 per cent) of respondents said they were trying to eat a more balanced diet.

If this resonates, you might be worrying about how to keep this up over the festive season – especially as, according to The Association of UK Dietitians, people gain, on average 1-5lb over the holiday period [3]. Or you may want to be part of the celebrations without suffering from sluggishness or a hangover the next day.

Follow these nutrition tips to help keep you fuelled so that you can enjoy the Christmas celebrations without exacerbating your menopausal symptoms.

Don’t diet

Now is not the time to embark on weight loss plans or to count calories. That’s not to say you can’t make healthy choices but aim to follow the 80/20 rule – where you eat healthily 80% of the time. Even better, says Dr Rupy Aujla, founder of The Doctor’s Kitchen, is to ‘Aim for 90/10 because you probably will get to 80/20. And if you do indulge, allow yourself to indulge without any guilt, and then make yourself a pact to get back on it the following day.’

RELATED: Creating long lasting food habits for better health

Cut back on UPF

Ultra processed food is making us sick, according to Henry Dimbleby, food campaigner and author of Ravenous. ‘57% of the food we eat is ultra processed food. It is generally very calorie dense, it is soft, it’s low in fibre and it doesn’t fill you up. And we find this food irresistible.’ No more so than at Christmas, when supermarkets offer huge ranges of delicious looking, time-saving foods. You can’t hope to replicate the breadth of what’s on offer and make it all yourself – instead focus on the dishes that really mean Christmas to you to make yourself, and don’t feel obliged to buy all the extras.  

RELATED: Ultra processed food: Unwrapped with Henry Dimbleby

Avoid eating late

The Christmas holidays, when you can try eating earlier in the evening and have a more leisurely breakfast time, are an ideal period to try an overnight fast. ‘The longer you can rest your microbes overnight, the better your metabolism is,’ says Professor Tim Spector, co-founder of Zoe nutrition app.  ‘Trying to rest between 12 and 14 hours a night can really help you.’ It’s thought that intermittent fasting can help change the makeup of your gut microbiome, which is linked to your health, plus when activity in your gut slows down, it gives more time for your gut lining to be repaired, which in turn could limit chronic inflammation.

Feed your gut

 In The Dr Louise Newson Podcast, Professor Tim Spector explained how our gut microbes control our response to sugar and fat and that the more you can improve your gut microbes, the more you can dampen down those responses. One way to do this is to eat fermented foods such as the three Ks (kombucha, kefir and kimchi) every day. The good news is that cheeses, bountiful at Christmas, are also fermented – aged cheddar, Swiss cheeses and parmesan are particularly good sources.

RELATED: Spoon-fed food: Tim Spector& Dr Louise Newson

Have DIY snacks

Crisps and nuts, mince pies and stollen, sausage rolls and cheese straws – while delicious, Christmas snacks tend to be unhealthy and easy to overeat. You don’t need to replace these with celery sticks (although you can if you want!), rather, think about making your own snacks. Shop-bought salted peanuts, for instance, can be replaced with trail mix – mixed nuts, seeds and dried fruits that you can flavour with cinnamon and nutmeg or cayenne and smoked paprika. Homemade snacks are fresher, contain less preservatives and you can up the variety of ingredients – and flavour.

Avoid trigger foods

While demonising particular foods and drinks isn’t helpful, it is worth limiting those that trigger your perimenopause or menopause symptoms. Alcohol and caffeine, for example, can both increase anxiety and interfere with sleep. It’s generally recommended that you avoid caffeine for a minimum of eight hours before bedtime to help minimise sleep problems [4]. If you are enjoying a drink at Christmas, have a jug of water on the table during all mealtimes and alternate between water and alcohol. If you suffer from reflux or heartburn, avoid your trigger foods – common ones include citrus, tomatoes, alcohol, chocolate, caffeinated drinks, fatty foods and spicy foods.

Keep an eye on portions

Many of us serve up a portion of food without thinking – it’s an automated action and most of the time we give ourselves the same amount of food we’ve always done without even considering our appetite. Tuning into your appetite simply means thinking before serving yourself food. If you’re hungry, don’t deny yourself but go for it on the like of vegetables, covering at least a third of your plate with them, and protein-rich foods that will keep you fuller for longer.

Think fresh and fabulous

Winter food tends to be more stodgy, so adding salads and vegetable to every festive meal can really bring some much-needed zing! Add some spice to your red cabbage, for example, or give carrots an edge with ginger, cumin and chilli. Get inspiration by looking into the Mediterranean diet, which is based on fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, wholegrains and unsaturated fat. As well as benefitting your overall health, there is evidence that a Mediterranean diet can reduced the severity of menopausal symptoms [5].

Don’t ditch carbs

‘Carbohydrates can get a bad press at times,’ says Dr Louise Newson in her book The Definitive Guide to the Perimenopause and Menopause. ‘They are frequently blamed for weight gain and post-dinner slumps; and they’re often the first type of food we reach for when we feel down. But not all carbs are made equal, and some are a really important energy source.’ Vegetables are a good source of carbohydrate, as are low-Gi foods such as pulses and wholegrains, so ensure you get enough of these to keep you going over the festive season.

Enjoy your food

Many articles about Christmas foods will extol the virtues of omega-3 rich smoked salmon, or low-fat and high-protein turkey, but reducing individual ingredients down to their properties misses the point (and who actually wants to think about tryptophans while eating their turkey?!). It’s far better in the long-term to consider your whole diet, ensuring it’s balanced, varied and colourful.

References

1. BDA: Eat drink and be healthy this Christmas

2. Newson Health (2024) ‘Women’s Experiences of Perimenopause and Menopause’

3. BDA: Eat drink and be healthy this Christmas

4. Sleep Foundation: caffeine and sleep

5. Vetrani C, Barrea L, Rispoli R, Verde L, De Alteriis G, Docimo A, Auriemma RS, Colao A, Savastano S, Muscogiuri G. (2022), ‘Mediterranean Diet: What Are the Consequences for Menopause?’, Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 25;13:886824. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2022.886824

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