Adrian Copcea, primary care physician specializing in diabetes, nutrition, metabolic diseases, presented three tips for minimizing the “damage” caused by lavish New Year’s Eve meals.
Holiday meals can be “kept in check”. PHOTO: Shutterstock
Nutritionist Adrian Copcea proposes three ideas for “damage control”, to minimize the damage caused by lavish Christmas and New Year’s meals. “It’s about what other tricks you can apply to not put on many kilos during the holidays… And I thought of 3 of them that I applied myself and maybe they will inspire you“, he explained.
The vegetables
“VEGETABLES. It sounds boring and banal, but in order to reduce the damage a little more, it’s good to focus on the idea: “let’s put vegetables on the table”. Vegetables are among the last favorites of this period, which is full of fatty foods and caloric desserts. You know. We can all count fatty meats, pastries and the rest of the goodies,” claims the nutritionist on his Facebook page.
Regarding vegetables, Copcea comes up with a suggestion tested on his own skin: “I simply bought a ready-washed salad from the supermarket and at some of the meals I still have the idea to take out the bag and take some more from it. A very good idea”.
He also recommends sauerkraut: “if you keep a plate with a relatively large amount of sauerkraut in plain sight… there are chances that you will cling to it and add more volume to the table, to fill your stomach with something other than cozonac.”
Mayonnaise reinvented
The second idea proposed by Copcea is diluted mayonnaise. The nutritionist confesses that he loves the taste of mayonnaise and it is one of the 3-4 dishes he knows how to cook.
“I was talking about mayonnaise and “diluted”: it is a very good and even applicable idea to make a normal mayonnaise, with oil, as it is made, and multiply it with yogurt and mustard and you will get a light mayonnaise that does not frustrate you not at all compared to the original. Practically, the more yogurt you put instead of oil from a moment of multiplication, the lower the caloric density”the doctor explains.
Most of the calories in food are from fat, he says, and the more you divert their influence, the lighter, more dietetic the food becomes. “Yes, potato mayonnaise also follows this rule, but diluting it with yogurt/sauce is additionally beneficial because yogurt itself is something healthy along its lines (it’s probiotic). And here you can add a little mustard for taste, there basically the industrial dilution is with starch, but even so the starch: oil ratio is 4:9, that is, it comes out to, rounded, 40-45% of the calories if you replace oil with starch. But don’t put that much mustard anyway. Along the same lines, eggs are a very good idea anytime. They are excellent foods and especially when we stay at home more we can use them generously”details the nutritionist.
Is sleep good for weight?
The third and last idea proposed by Adrian Copcea to keep weight under control after the holiday meals is… sleep. “Sman is a victim of the modern lifestyle. I have the concept, otherwise sound scientifically, that inadequate sleep makes us sick and ages: waking up with alarms (what a privilege those who don’t have to wake up with an alarm… it’s one of my goals in life… but unattainable if you have children to take to school, morning job, etc.), bad quality sleep (healthy sleep has some very clear rules, there are some brain wave cycles that must go completely head-to-tail so that sleep fulfills its role in the body, that of recovery) etc”says the doctor.
Many of us, he adds, spoil our sleep with various habits before bed – falling asleep with TV, using phones late, even curtains that let in light can spoil sleep.
“But one effect, let’s say unsuspected, and here it might be a bit funny, is that if you can sleep more… that way you can cut back on your meals. That you can’t eat in your sleep. It’s in a joking tone, but somehow I want to emphasize the idea that you can also reduce meals while on vacation by doing something (either work or sleep, both work) and supplement sleep”. shows Copcea.
“You can work a little on the number of meals, on movement”
The nutritionist claims that it is not worth experimenting with light muffins, sausages and light sausages. “But you can work a little on the number of meals, exercise, sleep”, he points out.
“I wish you all happy holidays and nice vacation, with rest, with less stress, usually the end of the year is a good time to take stock, we recap, we make plans, I think such breaks are good. They are like the break between halves of a football match, sometimes with a good coach many teams recover well after the break. I never knew what the coach says to some of them to come back like us after the break…but that’s how it should be at the end of the year, let’s put our ideas in our minds, let’s rest, let’s see where we are and what we want from life. I want a less stressful life, others want fewer kilos, others make big plans on who knows what subjects – career, money, etc. Each with his own thoughts”, concludes Adrian Copcea.
