Christmas Snack Calorie Guide

We all want to have a great time and enjoy ourselves over the festive period. But with so many Christmas parties to go to and family events around Christmas, how do you strike the right balance between enjoying yourself, but not getting on the scales on the 1st January and getting a serious fright and having to spend the next couple of months getting the weight off? Here is my Christmas snack calorie guide.

There is no point pretending it isn’t happening or hiding away from the calories in your food. You will regret it in January. But rather than me saying ‘eat this’ or ‘don’t eat that,’ I thought I would lay out the calorie values of some of our favourite Christmas foods. That way you can decide yourself which foods are worth the calories and which ones aren’t. At least this way you are making an educated choice. So here is a calorie guide to a few Christmas favourite foods;

Christmas Snack Calorie Guide

Cheese straw – 185 calories each
Salted nuts 30g (a handful) – 184 calories
Chunk (30g) of cheese – 140 calories
Quality street – 44 calories (average) per chocolate
Mince Pie – 277 calories
Crisps (handful) – 100 calories
Glass of Wine/Sparkling – 175ml – 150 calories
Pint of Beer – 225 calories

These are examples of the ‘extras’ we tend to eat at Christmas time. I say extras because they are the foods (and calories) that we eat in addition to our usual meals.
You can see how easily the calories can rack up without consuming much food at all. This is because these foods are so calorie dense. A couple of cheese straws are nearly 400 calories! That’s a meal! So you can see how people can easily add 1000 calories extra on top of their calorie intake without even talking about mealtimes.

So I would suggest deciding what it is you want to treat yourself to, and what you could do without/ you usually just eat because it’s there. Which foods do you really enjoy and which ones could you do without and it really wouldn’t affect the enjoyment of your day in the slightest.

Conclusion – Christmas Snack Calorie Guide

So you can see how easy it would be to go WAY over your calorie limit. You may take the view that ‘It’s Christmas’ so what the heck I am just going to eat/drink whatever you want. And that’s fine as long as you think the joy of doing that outweighs the feeling you will get in January when you step on the scales. In my experience, for most people you are better off having a bit of what you want but not going overboard, putting on a load of weight and having to struggle to get rid of it for months into the New Year.

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