Healthy, Nutritious Meals this Christmas

1 December 2016

We routinely do our best to ensure that everyone who leaves one of our fitness boot camps does so with the necessary knowledge and guidance to permanently adapt to consistently nutritious and healthy meals. However, even if you are yet to book your place with us, you can still benefit from the following little pearls of wisdom for a festive season much healthier than your initial expectations.

We routinely do our best to ensure that everyone who leaves one of our fitness boot camps does so with the necessary knowledge and guidance to permanently adapt to consistently nutritious and healthy meals. However, even if you are yet to book your place with us, you can still benefit from the following little pearls of wisdom for a festive season much healthier than your initial expectations.

Tips for making that turkey healthier

If you're keen on that ever-present of stereotypical Christmas meals, a cooked turkey, there are quite a few things you can do during preparation to make that succulent meat healthier. Sioned Quirke, spokesperson for the Birmingham-based British Dietetic Association, has advised through the BBC website: "When cooking turkey, don't add oil or butter and prick the skin to allow some of the fat to drain out of the meat".

Other recommendations she has provided include forgoing eating the cooked turkey's skin, as this includes the majority of the bird's fat. Oh, and should you usually enjoy using the bird's juices to make gravy, you can strip out further fat by dispensing that juice into a jug, leaving it to settle and then, once you have skimmed off the fat, using the left-behind juice.

Stack up on the veg!

Don't we all already know that vegetables are good for us? Of course we do. But it can pay to be highly discerning about exactly what vegetables you choose for your meals. Nonetheless, quantity can also be a crucial factor in using vegetables to boost the nutritional value of your meals. Marie Murphy, a nutrition scientist at the London-based British Nutrition Foundation, has advised filling up plates with veg before more energy dense foods, especially as briefly-cooked veg can prove more filling.

As for what exact vegetables you should use to enhance your meals - brussel sprouts are good due to their high amounts of vitamin C, folate and fibre. You could also swap roast potatoes for roast root vegetables - think parsnips, celeriac and beetroot, to reel off just a few examples.

If you opt to keep those potatoes, however, you could roast them with vegetable oils rather than lard, which is a solid fat and therefore higher in saturates. Vegetable oils also have the advantage of being rich in polyunsaturates, which are demonstrably useful for lowering blood cholesterol levels. Plus, the potatoes alone are rich in energy and fibre!