How you can have your Xmas cake ...and eat it!

BETWEEN the turkey and the cake, it’s a time of year when it’s all too easy to pile on the pounds.

But experts claim to have found a very simple way to avoid putting on weight over the festive season – getting on the scales twice a week.

Researchers tracked 272 volunteers over Christmas in 2016 and 2017.

Half were given basic tips on how to avoid over-indulging and asked to weigh themselves twice a week. The other half were given no advice and told to carry on as normal.

Members of the group who were given no advice put on 370g – just under 1lb – between

‘6,000 calories on Christmas Day’

November and January. The other group lost 130g – about quarter of a pound.

The study was carried out at Birmingham and Loughborough universities. Researcher Frances Mason, of Birmingham, said Christmas was ‘an opportunity for prolonged over-consumption and sedentary behaviour’.

She added: ‘On Christmas Day alone, an individual might consume 6,000 calories – three times the recommended daily allowance. Christmas is likely to tax even the most experienced weight controller.’

She stressed that ‘low intensity interventions’ such as weighing yourself twice a week and following basic diet tips ‘should be considered by health policy makers to prevent weight gain in the population during high-risk periods such as holidays’.

The new study’s results were published in the British Medical Journal.