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With Thanksgiving approaching, I am forgoing the meal plan this week. As we get ready for our holiday road trip, meals will be super simple (think soup and sandwiches, breakfast for dinner, wheat pasta and sauce from the jar, turkey burgers and salad). My weekly veggie chop and high protein breakfasts will still be in place.
I believe Thanksgiving should be about family, not about the number on the scale or the exact number of calories in the serving of sweet potato casserole.
Some tips that might be helpful as Turkey Day gets closer:
- Thanksgiving is one day: eat and enjoy on that day but don't eat like it's Thanksgiving every day for a week.
- Stay active: find a local Turkey Trot, do a 12 minute workout in the morning before things get busy, take a walk after dinner, stand instead of sit -- think of any excuse to get up and move, even if only for a few minutes at a time.
- If you are contributing to a meal prepared mostly by someone else, make something light and healthy. That way you can go back for seconds or have a "filler" if needed.
- If you are preparing most of the meal, add a little less butter and salt than each recipe calls for. Once the gravy hits the mashed potatoes, no one will notice they have less butter in them.
- Save your calories for the special foods: skip or take a very small serving of the foods you eat throughout the year so you can really enjoy those foods you only have on holidays.
- Eat like a toddler: with tiny portions, you really can have some of everything. Rather than loading your plate to overflowing or feeling deprived by not allowing yourself some of Gramma's corn pudding, enjoy a few tablespoons of each dish. Fix your plate as if it is for a small child whom you want to taste everything.
- If there is something on your plate you're not really enjoying, don't eat it. The clean plate club has disbanded.
Back to carb cycling next week! :)