3 Tips for a Healthy Christmas (While Pregnant)
If you’re pregnant for the first time, you might be looking ahead to this Christmas as being the last as a 2-unit family. It might also be your first Christmas with no (or minimal alcohol)! But even if you’re not drinking, you can still feel the effects of feeling ‘hungover’ because it’s not just the alcohol that can make us feel rubbish - there are other factors at play too. Don’t fall into the trap of feeling like you have a hangover without having had the buzz of the alcohol! Here are my tips for having a healthy Christmas during your pregnancy.
Stay hydrated
“Don’t fall into the trap of feeling like you have a hangover without having had the buzz of the alcohol”
Even though you're probably not drinking alcohol, make sure you have a drink at regular intervals. Often at social gatherings, we get swept up in chatting and socialising and can forget to keep drinking, especially if you’re not accepting the alcohol being passed around. And talking can make us quite dehydrated, which is a feature of a hangover.
If you do find yourself feeling dehydrated the next day, have a natural rehydration drink rather than reaching for Lucozade or rehydration salts. You can either drink coconut water, or use this rehydration drink recipe:
1-2 oranges, lemon or grapefruit, or a mix; juiced
500ml coconut water
1-2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey
Pinch of sea salt
Mix everything together, making sure the salt and maple syrup are well dissolved.
The citrus fruit gives you a vitamin C boost and the coconut water is a good source of potassium and magnesium, to replace the lost minerals. Make sure you use a natural salt, such as sea salt or Himalayan salt as they contain minerals in small quantities.
Watch sugar consumption
Eating and drinking foods high in sugar can give us a bit of a high, but also cause us to crash – this is another cause of a hangover as alcohol can be very sugary. So of you feel rubbish the day after a party, it could be because of eating too many festive sugary treats. It’s not about depriving yourself entirely, but being sensible about it.
This is especially true about sugar in liquid form. Fruit juice is a very concentrated form of fruit, so you can end up getting quite a lot of fruit sugar in a single drink. For example, a freshly squeezed glass of orange juice has around four or five oranges squeezed into it, which is a lot of sugar to take in at one time – you wouldn’t normally eat that number of oranges in one go!
Having said that, don’t deprive yourself entirely as it’s unrealistic, and you want to have a good time rather than feel like a party pooper. Quite often at social gatherings there’s not a huge amount of choice of soft drinks – I discovered this at pubs during my pregnancy! – but swap in a glass of juice with a glass of soda water and lime. And try and stay away from fizzy soft drinks entirely – they’re highly processed and full of unnatural chemicals.
Set yourself up for a good day
Plan your whole day – you know you're going to a party and you’ll probably have a slightly excessive consumption day, so make the first part of the day really good. Get outside for a walk and fresh air earlier in the day. Getting your muscles moving and blood pumping can help to make you feel healthier and help to deal with more sugar than you normal. That’s not to say this will mitigate the effects of the party completely, but balancing out the indulgent evening with some movement can help counteract some of the effects over over-consumption.
Just because you might eat a few too many mince pies later in the day doesn't mean that the whole day is ruined. Set yourself up well by starting with a protein-rich breakfast such as scrambled eggs on toast. Where you can control the meals, make great choices to include protein and fat – this will keep your blood sugars steady and allow you to better cope with the higher carbohydrate consumption later on.
Make sure that you eat enough good quality nutrients throughout the day. Again, with the extra-consumption of sweets and cakes, you might be over-loading on calories from a single macronutrients (carbohydrates) without getting enough of the micronutrients that keeps your body healthy and are vital for your growing or feeding baby. So when you can, choose meals that are really nutritious.
Having said that, please go out and really enjoy yourself. This is potentially your last Christmas without a baby or if this is your second baby, it's your last Christmas before it gets super hectic! Do the best you can, eat the best you can, sleep when you can, but also have a great time and socialise. Christmas is a really good time to enjoy really good food with great people.
Have a Happy Christmas!