We’re Stuffed!

Take That turned on the Christmas Lights in London on Sunday November 16th and declared it, “The official start to the party season.”  Is it me?  Why don’t they just bring Christmas forward to September then we could get Easter out of the way in December?

If I ate and drank like I do between 24th Dec – 1st January from mid November I would be in a very sorry state, but since Summer it seems the supermarket’s have been out in force trying to tempt us by whatever means they think fair.  Tempting offers on sweet tins the size of space hoppers, not to mention discount booze. A gallon of Baileys for £12.

I have to admit I am rather partial to the old Irish cream – having mocked it for years I was finding it worryingly moreish that is until I worked out that my little glassful was equivalent to nearly 300 calories!   If I had a daily dose of that from November 16th till New Year’s Day that would add an extra 13,800 calories to my waist, 4 Quality Street sweets per day 7,222.  The average mince pie contains 289 calories. Over the new 46 day festive marathon this equates to 13,294.  Some of these luxury buttery biscuits contain nearly 100 calories each and I can never have just one so throw in a couple of them a day and that’s 9,200 calories.  A handful of nuts 243 calories multiply that by 46 equals 11,178.

I read that on average we consume 7,000 calories each on Christmas Day alone, that’s 3 1/2 times the recommended intake for women.  A full turkey dinner with trimmings is equivalent to 1450 calories add another 1174 cals for pudding, custard and brandy butter.

It’s bonkers when you see it written down not to mention obscene when there are so many people in the world without enough food to survive, but the truth is many of us over indulge, but whereas in years gone by when Christmas lasted at most a week I knew I’d put on a few extra pounds but also knew it wouldn’t take long to get rid of it again, if Christmas party season is now over 6 weeks long. We could be looking at a couple of extra stone.

I know I’m exaggerating but if we don’t maintain our self-control at the checkout.  We’re going to be stuffed – literally.