It’s Christmas time!!

Merry Christmas to Everyone!

Only 3 more weeks to go and Christmas is here. I love Christmas because it is just a wonderful and joyous time. Food and drinks are definitely a big part of the Christmas. However, it could be quite stressful for people who live with diabetes……. Would my blood glucose levels be too high after the pavlova and the Christmas pudding? Will I gain too much weight? How will that glass of bubbles impact on my diabetes?

My general advice is always: Enjoy your Christmas day celebration with family and friends, because one day of different eating pattern will not ruin your weight and your HbA1c! But then I thought……well….. I need to give something a bit practical. So here we go:

For those of you who are watching your weight:

• Incorporate more salad and non-starchy vegetable choices as part of the Christmas lunch. My favourite is definitely the grilled prawn salad with baby spinach, cucumber and garlic lemon dressing.
• Instead of drinking alcohol all the way through the lunch, why not mix it up with some homemade fruit punch. Use fruit mixed with plain soda water to make a flavoursome punch (such as mango, passionfruit and mint in soda water; cherries and blueberries soda water with ice)
• For the dessert, try to make your own mince pie without the lid, use unsweetened custard, use whipped ricotta cream instead of double cream on the pavlova etc. And if you needed a Christmas pudding recipe that is a bit healthier, please leave a message and I can send you one free of charge 🙂

• Turkey meat is definitely a light and healthy choice because they are so lean
• Choose more seafood like grilled fish and prawns.
• It would be a good opportunity for us to go for a walk and have some games after the Christmas lunch to help with burning off some of the glucose and/ calories.

For those of you who are carb counting:

• You can eat as much as you like as long as you bolus for the right amount of carbs.
• Carb content for some common Christmas food
  • A typical 100g Christmas pudding (about 1/10 of a pudding) contains 50g of carbohydrate
  • A typical pavlova with fruit (120g in weight) contains 33 grams of carbs
  • An individual fruit mince pie contains 27 grams of carbs
  • A regular size candy cane contains 11 grams of carbs
  • I will only count the carbohydrate in the pre-mixed drinks such as the coke in the rum.
• For those of you using insulin pump, if the lunch is going to be a finger nibbling setting, you can always use a different setting to help with managing your blood glucose levels during the meal time (extended wave). If you are unsure of how to use the extended wave, you may need to make an appointment to see our Diabetes Educators at AH Diabetes prior to Christmas.
• For those of you are on insulin, please make sure you test your BGLs prior you drive and every 2 hours during the journey, especially if you are going for a very long distance.

For those of you who are hosting a Christmas Party:

• Because of our nature of generosity, we also provide more than we needed. So, in order to avoid food wastage, here are some ideas for you:
  • create a shopping list before you head to the shop and work out exactly how much you need to feed all your guests. Impulsive shopping is always a killer to our budget
  • Prepared some cute takeaway containers to invite guests to take leftover home, so that you won’t be left to deal with all the leftover on your own.
  • Prepared some healthier snack options at the same time such as air-popped popcorn, hummus dip with vegetable, dry roasted nuts
  • Research on some healthy recipes to make a few variety of salad and use seasonal fruit to make salad dressing.
  • Plan some games that can involve everyone to move after a meal

That’s it from me. I wish you all have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year. Stay safe.