A Lighter Christmas

You've exercised hard and eaten right throughout the year....then along comes the Christmas party season. Is it possible to have your cake and eat it? Heres a few ideas how to enjoy your christmas without becoming a pudding!

Finger Nibbles
Pastry based nibbles are the thing to stay clear of. Sausage rolls, quiches, vol-au-vents, spring rolls and flans, are all usually highly calorific.
Swap: Ease off the mini sausage rolls (54kcal) and instead opted for the less fatty cocktail sausage instead (40kcal).
Avoid: Anything that has been deep-fried, for example battered prawns.
Swap: Mini vol-au-vent filled with cream cheese and prawns (195kcal) for pieces of toasted pitta bread topped with prawn and low-fat soft cheese (85kcal). This will lead to all the flavour, but with less than half the calories.

Christmas Cheese
When choosing your accompaniments for your cheese be careful. French Bread and butter or a handful of cream crackers will double the calories. Consider breadsticks, crispbreads or water biscuits and use grapes, celery and fruit to fill up on.
Swap: If you are unable to resist the cheeseboard, thenby making a few simple changes can help to ease your conscience and your waistline. Bire (75kcal per 25g serving), Camembert (75kcal per 25g serving) and Edam (82kcal per 25g serving), all contain less calories than Cheddar (105kcal per 25g serving), Stilton (105kcal per 25g serving) and Red Leicester (100kcal per 25g serving). However, if goat's cheese is on offer then go for that everytime (62kcal per 25g serving).

Christmas Cheers
Wine: Try mixing white wine with soda water to halve the calories, or alternatively opt for either a dry white (116kcal per 175ml glass) or a glass of red, as these contain fewer calories than sweet wines, which come in at around 170kcal per glass.
Lager: Easy to remember - the higher the alcohol content the more calories the larger contains. A pint of Carlsberg holds around 182kcal, whereas a pint of Stella Artois would be 246kcal.
Beer: The style of beer can be the key here. A pint of draught mild will have around 136kcal per pint, Boddingtons bitter around 170kcal and Guinness nearer to 210kcal.
Spirits: Light, white spirits usually have fewer calories than darker ones.For example 175ml of vodka and slimline tonic has 88kcal, and a vodka with half a can of red bull around 112kcal. However two pub measures of brandy (35ml) register more than 140kcal.

Information sourced from Outdoor Fitness Dec 2011-Jan 2012.