My guest blogger David offers some tips for shedding the Christmas weight. He writes: It is so easy to fall behind on your diet and exercise over Christmas. Our family tends to turn up on different days and we visit as many of them as we can, so in my household we sometimes have up to five very rich and heavy meals over every festive period, and that’s before all the chocolate, cake, pudding, butter and leftovers we will indefinitely consume.

So come January we are desperate to lose our excess Christmas weight. Rather than jump on the latest diet fad band-wagon, I think the best way to lose weight after Christmas is to return to a normal balanced diet and exercise regimen.

Top tips for losing the Christmas weight

Good hydration

If you stay hydrated, the chances are you will also decrease your snacking because you’ll feel fuller. Much of the time when you feel hungry it is in fact your body feeling dehydrated.

Good hydration is also healthy because it’s important to replace the fluid you lose when you breathe, sweat or urinate. The European Food Safety Authority recommends that women should drink about 1.6 litres of fluid and men should drink about 2.0 litres of fluid per day.

You do get some fluid from food but most hydration will come from drinks, and although teas and Kimbo coffee supplies will hydrate you, the healthiest drinks to consume are water, milk and fruit juice.

More exercise

To generally keep healthy, and lose that Christmas weight, the average adult under 64 should be exercising in some way daily. They should be looking to achieve at least:

2 ½ hours of moderate-intensity aerobic activity such as cycling or fast walking every week

Or

1 ¼ hours of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity such as running or a game of singles tennis every week.

Or

An equivalent mix of moderate and vigorous-intensity aerobic activity every week.

Maintain a balanced diet

Starving yourself or doing mad fad diets are not the best way to lose weight properly. The problem with them is that as soon as you finish them, you put the weight back on and sometimes even more catastrophically than before. A balanced diet is key for keeping your body healthy and if done properly with exercise will aid weight loss.

For a balanced diet you should be looking to consume around:

• 33% breads, pasta, cereals, rice or grains

• 33%  fruit and vegetables

• 15% meat, fish or alternatives

• 12% milk and dairy products

• 7% fatty and sugary foods.

Find out more about food groups on the BBC Bitesize website.

Supplements

If you need help to lose weight while keeping a balanced diet, you could try supplements to aid you with your weight loss. Some supplements will directly help you with weight loss like these bestselling fat burners.  You can also try supplementing meals with a shake, but with this you’ll be eating less fats which as you can see are still necessary to your diet.