Polish people around Europe are extending their waistlines and letting it all hang out for the continent's sweetest holiday, Tłusty Czwartek or 'Fat Thursday'.

The Polish equivalent of Shrove Tuesday in the UK, the gluttonous celebration comes every year on the Thursday before the Christian holiday of Lent, when believers would traditionally fast ahead of Easter.

While in the UK, people tend to eat pancakes to use up indulgent ingredients like butter, eggs, sugar, and lard, Poles prefer to eat 'Paczki'  or Polish doughnuts.

Pączki (pronounced 'pownch-key') are Polish delicacies made from an enriched yeast dough that are deep-fried, filled with fruit, jam or custard and topped with glazed or powdered sugar.

The tradition dates back to the Middle Ages, when they were filled with pork fat and fried in lard to finish off left over ingredients.

While other favored snacks include Faworki or Angel Wings - deep-fried slivers of buttered-flour, sprinkled with powdered sugar – it appears to be paczek that do it for most Polish people.

Long queues often build up outside local bakeries, with each person eating an estimated 2.5 doughnuts every Fat Thursday: that makes 100 million doughnuts in one day.

In fact, the popularity of doughnut-eating is so widespread that a myth abounds to this day that those who fail to eat a paczki will bring misfortune on themselves for the rest of the year.

That's bad news for anyone trying to maintain their diet, with a medium-sized doughnut with rose preserve and icing containing an average calorific value of 400 kcal, the equivalent of a light meal.

With that in mind, tread lightly if you plan to indulge, and bon appétit, or as they say in Polish, smacznego!