It's called Easter not Eater!

Most people who come to see me for consultation at the clinic think that Easter holidays is their time-off from their usual diet and a green light to eat eat eat and gain weight. I try to explain that Easter is not supposed to last 3 weeks! 3 whole weeks eating chocolates, boiled eggs, and ma3moul made of dates/walnut/almonds/pistachios …. the list of sweets never seems to end on Easter! It’s only advised to eat whatever your heart desires on 1 or 2 days during this period.

I wish we could focus more on the real meaning of Easter, which should bring us unity, love, and forgiveness and focus less on the food part!

A few good tips I give my clients during Easter period are to eat a balanced breakfast, to have a free lunch on Easter Sunday and Palm Monday with all the good food they desire, and to have a light dinner such as green salad with a couple of slices of turkey ham or a few spoons of tuna in water. They should not consume more than 2 kinds of sweets (1 medium ma3moul and 1 small chocolate or 2 small ma3mouls) on each of the 2 days. After these 2 days pass, they should forget about all the Easter yummilicious foods else weight gain will be unavoidable!

As for sweets to offer your guests, I would advise the many kinds and different fillings of homemade ma3moul since you can control the quantity of sugars and fats in those and thus minimize the detrimental effects when you over-consume, and I promise that you will over-consume!. Dark chocolate eggs have less fat and less sugar that normal chocolate as well so it would be advisable to stock, offer guests and personally consume those.

As for the boiled eggs please don’t buy artificial colorings, you can either buy natural coloring for your children or boil the eggs with the vegetable skins of beets, red onion or parsley. Your choice depends on the color you want, you can even mix. Isn’t that more fun and a lot healthier?

Happy Easter everyone! And may the Resurrection of the Christ bring to you Joy and Peace all along the year!

And if you fall into temptation and end up gaining some weight don’t hesitate to contact me! I’ll be waiting for you to help you get rid of the weight annoying you!

Samia Khoury Dietitian