In view of the imminent arrival of the Christmas holidays, Dr. Marta Cuervo, professor and researcher at the School of Pharmacy and Nutrition of the University of Navarra, stresses that weight gain at this time "is not usually due to excesses of specific days, but to several weeks and even months in which sweets and fats have been abused".

In this sense, he warns that "a person who has gained three or four kilos in a month should take another month to lose them, if they do not want to fall into problems of poor diet and the famous rebound effect, whereby after an inadequate per diem expenses they end up gaining more kilos than they had previously".

For this reason, he recommends that overeating should be restricted to the holidays, not the entire Christmas period: "Supermarkets offer products, such as Christmas sweets, from October until well after the holidays, causing some peopleto "celebrate" Christmas for two or three months".

This change in habits, says the dietician-nutritionist, means that what would be sporadic excesses of a few days can turn into several weeks of overly abundant intakes with lots of sweets and fats. Hence, she says, the core topic is to limit exaggerated meals to the specific days of the holidays: "And if we buy sweets in advance, they should replace those we usually eat, not be added". "That is to say," he clarifies, "if we have an ounce of chocolate every day for dessert, we can change it for a piece of nougat. What is not convenient is to keep the daily chocolate and add a piece of nougat during the whole Christmas campaign".

Another way of not extending the super abundant intakes is not to buy or cook "as if there were thirty of us when there are ten of us". According to the expert, "there is still this idea that a good host, in this or other celebrations, is the one who prepares so much food that the guests end up very full, when this is not healthy at all".

Green" appetizers to share

As a recommendation to prepare less heavy menus, the doctor in Human Nutrition and Dietetics of the School of Pharmacy and Nutrition proposes appetizers to share, not individual, made from salads, asparagus and other vegetables, which can also serve as an accompaniment to main dishes, such as meat or fish. "Likewise, it is always more convenient to opt for a fish for dinner and for a meat or a more elaborate stew for meals, in order to avoid digestion that is too heavy." "And, of course, resort to fruit for dessert, for example in the form of fruit salad," he adds.

In this sense, and although he stresses that olive oil is the healthiest, "that does not mean that we should overuse it, since it is still a fat". The same happens with the habit of skipping a meal on these dates: "This is not at all advisable, another thing is to have a lighter dinner if the meal has been very abundant, for example".