As we wind down into the winter months and the year draws to a close, we are inundated with Christmas festivities and parties filling up our social calendars.

With lots of booze and party food around, it can be difficult to stay on track when it comes to our health.

Our resident Nutritionist Lauren Windas is giving her top 5 tips on how to stay healthy during the holidays:

1. Eat when you are hungry: eating only when you are hungry is a great tactic to avoid consuming too much food during the festive season and you can gain a better insight into your hunger hormones, which give you cues for your next meal. The more mindful you are with each mouthful, the more in touch you can become with your food choices in understanding reasons why you might be overeating this holiday season.
2. Build balanced plates of food: incorporate sufficient protein, high quality fats and some complex sources of carbohydrate around a plate of non-starchy vegetables for the perfect balanced dish. Consuming more fibre, fat and protein can act as a ‘blood sugar buffer’, keeping our energy levels stable throughout the day. A perfect example is my winter chicken stew recipe here, or even a traditional Christmas roast with all of the trimmings. Yum!
3. Find the power in saying no: this might sound a bit of a buzz-kill, but if you find yourself at 5 Christmas parties in one week, it might be a good idea to look at reducing your alcohol consumption. Look towards the nights where you really value enjoying a glass of wine and celebrating, and avoid the nights where you know it might not serve you to drink. There is a real power in being able to say no to food and drink that does not serve your health – practise this when you feel that your diet has slipped and when your body needs a little more TLC. 
4. Move your body: there are so many amazing benefits of exercise, from keeping your heart healthy to preventing diabetes and obesity, exercise can also support your mood and keep your weight stable. Christmas often means that our exercise routines fall a little slack and we so often lose our movement momentum into the new year. Try not to let exercise slip away from your weekly routine and incorporate effective exercises that you and your body loves to do… it might be running, yoga, pilates or getting some moves in on the dance floor, just get your body moving this Christmas to stay well.
5. Drink plenty of water: our body is made up of 70% water and so it is no surprise that this is one of my top tips. Water helps our body’s cells to function efficiently, absorb nutrients, promote digestion, support cognition and excrete waste products. How much water we require tends to vary based on age, gender, physical activity levels and overall health status, but as a guideline aim for 1.5-2 litres. Buy yourself a re-usable water bottle and get drinking!

At ARDERE we know how important it is to stay healthy during the festive period and so we can’t wait to start incorporating these tips into our routine!