FOOD TIP: Preventing Winter Weight Gain

When its starts to get cold outside and you begin to cancel on those Saturday nights out on the town, you know that winter is in season. During winter most of us tend to spend more time sitting in front of the telly, and less time getting out and about. Not only are we less active, we tend to reach for the comfort foods to keep us all warm and cosy inside. The problem is these comfort foods are often, sugar or fatty or both!

Have you ever sat down to watch a movie on a cold winter's night with a nice creamy hot chocolate with marshmellows and a packet of Tim Tams? Or curlled up to a packet of potato chips or corn chips? It doesn't matter what your comfort food is, when we start to eat more and exercise less weight gain is sure to result. So how can you get through winter without bumping up the bathroom scales? Here's some handy hints:

• Exercise - When the morning alarm goes off and you can't leave your nice warm bed, your morning exercise session often becomes nonexistent. What you need to do is place your alarm clock on the opposite side of the room so that you can't reach it from you bed. When the annoying alarm sounds you will have to get out of bed to turn it off. And seeing that you are already up can go for your exercise session.
• Replace creamy hot chocolates - Make your hot chocolate with half water and half milk, and allow yourself one marshmellow. Instead of the packet of Tim Tams try 2 Arnott's snack rights. There made with real fruit so they will hit that sweet spot.
• Drink tea - Tea is contains very little kilojoules and is packed full of antioxidants. It's perfect to keep you warm on a winter's night.
• Drink water - A lot of us tend to forget to drink water during winter, but our body still needs 8 glasses a day. By making sure you get your daily fluid intake, you can reduce those sugary cravings that you get mid afternoon. These cravings are more likely to be as a result of thirst rather than hunger, so drink a couple of glasses of water and steer clear of the chocolate.
• Choose soup - Soup based on vegetables and legumes are perfect for wintery days. They keep you warm, fill you up and provide you with essential vitamins and minerals. You make your own or choose a canned soup. For canned soup be careful of the salt content and look for products with less than 360mg/100g.
• Ditch the chips - Instead of digging into a packet of potato crisps or corn chips why not cook up some popcorn. You could also try Mother Earth's prepackaged popcorn if you don't want to pop your own.

Making just a couple of small changes to your daily winter routine can have wonderful results on the scales, making your body look trim, taunt and terrific in your summer swim cosy.