Christmas holidays are the cross and delight of many people: on the one hand there is abundance, on the other the desire not to turn them into a dietary nightmare that often ruins our good times! Let’s see how the right food combinations can turn the holidays into an opportunity to eat more without gaining weight.

Christmas and New Year celebrations: why do we get fat?

If we want to enjoy food without gaining weight, it is good to understand that there is no point in eating everything.

Instead that’s what happens. Every year we find appetizers with puff pastry, pickles and Russian salads. Followed by fried food, honeyed sweets and panettone. All good things, but that cannot be said that we have never eaten in our life.

It also ends up having to dispose of a lot of leftovers.

The result is that we can’t help but run out of them.
Which does not allow us to eat less on the days between the holidays.

Instead, the holidays can be an opportunity to enjoy the table in a healthy way ,  if we keep blood sugar and insulin under control with the food combinations that I suggest below.
We will have the opportunity to choose typically festive and often Christmas foods, decorating the table with less consequences for the line. And also for the wallet.

Here’s what you can eat for a diet Christmas, combining foods to have a balanced dinner of protein, good fats and low-glycemic carbohydrates.

Healthy Christmas dishes with the right food combinations

1. Aspic .

   It takes NOTHING to make a nice aspic. Buy some food gelatin, dissolve it in vegetable or chicken broth according to the doses, spice it with saffron or turmeric. In a mold, arrange thin slices of eggs, raw carrots and boiled peas, chicken or turkey breast in pieces. Pour the broth with gelatin, let it solidify and voila. A simple, protein-rich, highly digestible dish. A perfect and very scenic appetizer.

   

2. Crudités and hummus.
   

   Raw vegetables and legumes lower not only the glycemic but also the insulin load of meals. For example, try making hummus, olive pate made by yourself or tzatziki, arranging the creams in three beautiful bowls in the centerpiece, with raw fennel, radicchio, radishes, baby carrots, sliced ​​cucumbers.

3. Boulgur, buckwheat noodles, quinoa, brown rice for first courses.
   

   For once, let’s use these whole grains for our starters. Maybe making a wholemeal couscous or a sea boulgur, paired with shrimp tails, clams and mussels. Or buckwheat noodles with scampi and lemon or cuttlefish ink. Quantities? A taste of 60 grams of first course is more than enough.
   An even healthier alternative? A soup (for example of pumpkin) with wholemeal seed bread croutons.
   Try the pumpkin or fennel soup and serve it with baked scallops or spiced turkey bites.

4. Fish.

   Green light for fresh crustaceans and molluscs or grilled fish for the evenings of 24 and 31 December. Prawns, prawns, squid, mussels, oysters and clams can be the protagonists of grilled foods, warm seafood salads and seafood crudités. Same thing for smoked: smoked salmon, tuna and swordfish for splendid carpaccio. You can also smoke these fish at home to amaze guests.

   

   And again, in the name of regional tradition: cod. Try it stewed, in raw carpaccio. See the codfish carpaccio recipe. 
   Not only does fish not make you fat, it lowers your glycemic load and is an excellent source of protein. It is also easily digested.

5. Orange salad.
   

   A typical and effective Sicilian recipe, which will please and limit fats without compromising digestion. See how it prepares.

6. Red fruits, pomegranates and acidulous exotic fruit .

   We finish the meal with red fruits, pomegranate grains, pineapple and lychee.

7. Diet cheesecake.

   A spoon dessert to finish in beauty can be a lean cheesecake or a low-fat yogurt mousse, without biscuit base, obtained by whipping 150 grams of lean ricotta with 150 grams of Greek yogurt together with a little fructose (or whoever wants stevia) and a teaspoon of rum, and poured into 4 small bowls to garnish with dark chocolate drops and pomegranate grains. Alternatively, try making the dietetic yogurt panettone at home.