Don’t fall for it. You’re going to be near friends and family that want to share amazing and unhealthy foods with you. The holidays always bring delights like cake, pie, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and a ton of other things I shall not mention, because I don’t want to make you miss them.
You can eat healthy during the holidays and not suffer for it. Consider not eating as many carbs, starches, and sugars. That means cutting out the stuffing, potatoes, and rolls. Those are probably the most unhealthy things you can consume. The next biggest thing you can do is cut out the volume. One plate is enough. A lot of people use the holidays as a reason to over eat. Don’t be swayed to the dark side.
The real trick is to go into each holiday meal with a plan and stick to it. If you have a plan it’s easy to avoid deviation. Know what you’re going to eat and when. Know how the ‘big meal’ affects the calories for the rest of your day and plan those meals too.
Remember too: it’s a holiday, but that doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate it over multiple days. Consider having your desert the next day, or the day before. You can spread it out over a week even!
My Plan
For Thanksgiving I intend to have my turkey over a salad that includes some pretty amazing cheeses – most of which were made locally here in Vermont. I also intend to dice up some cranberry sauce and use an amazing walnut raspberry vinaigrette that I found in the local supermarket. I’ll probably have one roll, a small portion of stuffing, and some mashed potatoes. I don’t intend to have desert until the following day.
All in, I think my Thanksgiving meal will be around 900 Calories, which is what it takes for me to enjoy it like a holiday, but still be healthy. That’s number I come out when I balance my happiness with my fitness. Assuming I eat other meals that day, I guess I’ll need to offset some calories, huh?
After my meal (about 4 to 5 hours later), I intend to go to the gym and get a solid workout and burn about 500 of those Calories. That’s about a 5 mile jog. I could also do 2.5 mile jog and some medium intensity weight training for about 40 minutes, which is probably what I’ll really do.
The Real Point
Now that you know what I’m doing, and what I’m avoiding, make sure you take everything else you’ve learned from reading this website to make your own plan. Take diet, exercise, and of course, your own happiness into account when developing that plan. It is a holiday, the mother of all cheat days, but don’t take it too far. Of course if you’re looking for help, you can always contact me and I’ll help you along. Even if you just need someone to support you, I’m here. You can always leave comments or email me any time, even the holidays and I’ll be in touch.
I’ve been reading a lot lately about intermittent fasting as a way to jump start fat loss. In my own fat loss quest, I’ve started to hit a plateau around 200 lbs. I feel like that might also be because I’m starting to add on a lot of muscle, but I can’t be sure. I’m by no means demotivated by my progress, because I am doing much better than I was six months ago.
