But there are a lot of Christmas parties that happen over this time and sometimes it’s one every night and you’re not eating well and you’re drinking too much and you don’t get up and do your exercise program.  These are the things that seem to happen around Christmas time, everything gets dropped, so I have just a few guidelines that I put out during Christmas just to help people with their Christmas cheer and maybe their body, you know, not putting weight on and just trying to keep everything at a status quo at least. 

The first thing is that when you go to a party that the drinks that you drink, whether you choose to drink alcohol or not, but if you are drinking alcohol that you choose one type of drink.  So you either choose to drink wine, white or red, or choose to drink beer or you choose to drink spirits and if you choose to drink spirits, don’t drink them with mixers, drink them on ice or straight up.  When you do have a drink, follow it up with a glass of water, then have another drink and follow that up with water and then have another drink and so on. 

So don’t drink alcohol with every drink make sure that every second drink that you have is a glass of water.  When it comes to food, have a look at the food that’s coming out because there’s normally lots and decide, at that point, what type of meat you’re going to eat, so you’re either going to have chicken, fish, or either have red meat or you might decide to go vegetarian.  So this way you’re not eating everything, but you’re only eating one, so you’ve decided I’m only having the chicken and the vegetables that come out, if I’m only having fish, I’ll only eat the fish dishes and vegetables that are coming out.  If there’s avocado, or guacamole coming out with crackers, then avoid the crackers and try to eat the carrot and celery sticks with your dips.  If there are any fried foods, then try to avoid them, just stay away from them. 

They usually give you a food hangover, which means if you haven’t drunk any alcohol you feel like you have drunk alcohol.  So there are my tips then.  My last tip is about exercise.  It is so important that you keep your exercise regime going.  Now if you’re an early morning walker, don’t go to bed too late so that you can’t get up and do your morning walk and if you haven’t done your morning walk, then decide that at lunch time you’re going to do it.  Then in the morning, when you’ve woken up from a Christmas party and you’re not feeling too good, then I recommend that you eat fruit from the minute you wake up, or fruit juices, you know like go to a juice bar and get just a juice, so from the minute you wake up until midday, only drink juices and that way any foods that you have overindulged in or drinks that you have overindulged in, the body will be enabled to get rid of those, so if you go straight to breakfast cereal, or bacon and eggs, or something that you really feel like or something greasy, then your body will never be able to get rid of those and you’ll feel even worse the next day. 

So there are my little guidelines for people who are trying to survive Christmas and get over it without any major catastrophes with their health or their physical body image.