Attention, colorful plates!
We need more calories at Christmas time.
The appetite comes while eating. Especially at Christmas time. Since the temptation is particularly large. Everywhere, well-filled colorful plates and biscuit bowls attract visitors. Fragrant vanilla kipferln awaken childhood memories, the first domino awakens the anticipation of cozy Advent Sundays, and a bag of marzipan potatoes can hardly resist even some wholemeal bread knife. Faster than the rest of the year, we have an appetite for sweets - and suddenly the bag is empty.
No reason to have a bad conscience. What would Christmas be without nostalgic treats? They are just part of it. From time to time, as a conscious pleasure. And against the grasp reflex to sweets help small protective measures. For example, to offer coffee with friends, oranges, apples, figs, dates or nuts. They are healthier than speculoos - but just as Christmassy. Or place carrot slices next to the Christmas arrangement on the desk instead of chocolate balls. The colleagues will be grateful for that. In many teams even relief is felt when the open-plan office is jointly declared a pepperfree-free zone.
At Christmas time, not only the supply, but also the demand changes: we actually need more calories than usual. Especially fans of Mediterranean summer cuisine often have a hunger in winter - and stuff the hole in the stomach with sweets. It helps to switch the diet to winter time in good time. It does not have to be heavy home-cooking, vegetarian dishes with winter vegetables like cabbage or beetroot are also filling.
Blame are the hormones.
The big appetite is due to hormones: lack of natural light means that we have an excess of the tiring hormone melatonin - and that produces cravings for sweets. Anyone who regularly eats chocolate at around 4:00 pm in the winter like Bridget Jones should therefore take a fifteen-minute walk outside at noon.
As a result, the melatonin level drops, we become happier again, and the greed for sweetness subsides. It's best to start with the mini exercise program as soon as the first pallets of chocolate Christmas men appear in the shops - this gradually gets us used to the wintry cold weather and gets through even in the snow and ice at midday a bit to represent the legs.
Eating in winter usually does not make you fat
Cool calculators can pull out other stops as well: they are relocating to anything that has fewer calories. For even among the Christmas sweets, there are good and less good: Stollen and marzipan bread have it all, cinnamon stars and gingerbread without jam filling are, however, to tolerate, if you enjoy them in moderation. And at the holiday courts, you can replace the goose with red cabbage with a lighter meal. Fish, like a whole salmon, has less calories, more healthy omega-3 fatty acids and looks very festive on the Christmas table as well.
Comforting for those who nevertheless become weak: According to a study, we usually do not increase more than 370 grams in one winter. A manageable amount. For Christmas feasters, however, another tradition makes perfect sense - Lent.
