The end of the year parties with their typical food and drink marathons provide us with the same amount of calories that we should consume in a week: an average of 14 thousand, when a healthy person needs between 2,000 and 2,500 per day. For this reason, from the College of Nutritionists of the Province of Buenos Aires they warn that to compensate for these excesses, the days after the celebration should choose healthy nutrients, especially vegetables, fruits and water, which help to “clean” the body, prevent gastric discomfort and risky overweight.
“When we do an excessive intake of food and beverages, generally, a metabolic disorder occurs that causes different symptoms, such as heaviness, abdominal distention, abdominal pain, so-called hyperosmotic diarrhea caused by excessive food intake and, also, gastric disorders such as heartburn, nausea, vomiting and headaches ”, explains the president of the Buenos Aires College of Nutritionists, Paula Das Neves.
In addition, it must be borne in mind that during December not only do you eat and drink excessively at the Holidays, but almost the entire month because the farewells of the year with friends or colleagues are added, which this time were more anticipated than ever after months of mandatory isolation due to the pandemic.
Therefore, once the great end-of-the-year feasts are over, it will be necessary to take action to heal the body and keep it in balance. How to achieve it? “The best way is to eat healthily, this implies respecting the four meals: breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner, incorporating five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, which are equivalent to three daily fruits, half a plate of raw vegetables and half a plate of vegetables cooked and avoid foods with excessive fat and sugar content ”, recommends Das Neves. And he adds that if you count how many fruits and vegetables you eat in a day, you will most likely fall short and do not reach the five servings recommended by the World Health Organization. The key to achieving them, indicates Das Neves, would lie in adding them to the diet as a replacement for other more caloric foods, for example, preferring a fruit instead of cookies or cakes in the middle of the morning or at snack time.
In a healthy diet, in addition, when it comes to hydrating, safe water is the best because it does not provide calories, quenches thirst like no other drink and is a true balm for the body, even more so when compared to alcohol. sodas or juices that are excessively sweetened with sugars.
The specialist is not in favor of prohibitions but understands that there are some foods that are not recommended: “Today we all know that sugary drinks and ultra-processed foods such as cookies, dressings, sausages, hamburgers, snacks or ready-to-eat preparations are those with the highest content of fats, sugars, additives and preservatives and, therefore, those that most promote obesity and overweight ”. That is why he insists on “prioritizing a varied diet that, mainly, has fresh foods, baked goods and cereals with fiber and water as the drink of choice.”
What the pandemic left us
This year marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and mandatory isolation generated in certain sectors of the population – especially those who did not lose their jobs or access to food – much more time to cook, eat and, at the same time time, more sedentary lifestyle and less energy expenditure in daily activities or sports. For this reason, many feel heavier and consult nutritionists.
However, Das Neves underlines some positive aspects of the change in habits because “at the beginning the purchase of food was oriented towards the shops closest to the home, so new foods were purchased or that were not usually consumed, for example, more consumption of fresh food and less ultra-processed ”.
At the same time, it rescues that many families resumed eating habits with the family, rescued recipes from grandmothers or relatives and an important role was given to the preparation of meals: “In such a globalized world, where food culture is so blurred and they appeal to ready-made food, the pandemic has allowed us to rediscover fresh food and homemade meals in a different way, something not less in these times where we often eat in a hurry, looking at a cell phone or working.
Another lesson from the pandemic is that the virus was more aggressive in people with obesity and metabolic disorders such as diabetes. Therefore, Das Neves analyzes, “it is probable that many people have taken a greater dimension of the importance of choosing in a conscious way what to put in the mouth, when to do it and to what extent”.
Eating healthy is eating all four meals and including 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day
“After the Holidays, drink lots of water and eat more fruits and vegetables”
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When we make an excessive intake of food and beverages, generally, a metabolic disorder occurs that causes different symptoms, such as heaviness, bloating, abdominal pain, among others “
Paula Das Neves president of the College of Nutritionists of the Province of Buenos Aires
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