Make a Meal of It

“When we’re visiting our friends and family over the holidays, food usually becomes the focal point,” says Tomlinson. “That means it’s easy to consume a whole meal’s worth of calories before, well… the meal. Creamy dips and fat-rich foods such as cheese aren’t ‘bad’ – food is morally neutral, after all – but they do facilitate putting away a lot of calories without it having much impact on your satiety. Choose something more filling, such as the spread on the right, so you’re more likely to feel satisfied.” Plus, research in the journal Appetite suggests that presenting food in multiple smaller units increases fullness – as good an excuse for cocktail sausages as any!