Thanksgiving and Dieting

As Thanksgiving comes around again in a few days, it is a wonderful time of year that we get to celebrate and spend time with family and loved ones. There is not much better than sitting and arguing politics, watching football, and discussing whatever else is going on in our lives. While Thanksgiving can be stressful and overwhelming for some, it should be a time that we are grateful for what we have.

Besides family, Thanksgiving is overly focused on food. When you think of Thanksgiving, you most likely think of turkey, mashed potatoes, and pie. Within a few weeks after Thanksgiving comes Christmas and all of December is filled with delicious and unhealthy snacks. It’s this time of year that’s often very difficult for people to maintain their healthy lifestyle through, but you can do it.

In order to save your diet during Thanksgiving, you need to focus on eating the healthier foods and keep the unhealthy foods to a minimum. The great thing about Thanksgiving is that there are generally plenty of healthy foods that you can eat without issue. The bad thing about Thanksgiving is that there are a lot of sweet and delicious foods that will destroy any diet very quickly as well.

Focus on the meat and salad to start. Turkey and ham are generally your best options when it comes to the Thanksgiving dinner. Load your plate up with a green salad (not too much dressing) and lots of meat. If you can focus your meal primarily on these items, then you can limit some of the less healthy foods. You can use a little bit of gravy, but you shouldn’t have more gravy than meat - you’ll be eating more calories in gravy if you do.

If you know how the mashed potatoes were made, you can determine better how much of it you can eat. All too often mashed potatoes are loaded with butter which makes them unhealthy but really tasty. If you know that no butter was added, or very little, then you can have more mashed potatoes. We’re not saying don’t eat any mashed potatoes, we’re just saying you may want to limit how much you consume if there’s a lot of butter.

Sweet potatoes are also a great option, but they’re also often lined with sugar for Thanksgiving. If you know they weren’t, then go at it. I prefer to make the sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving so that they are not loaded with sugar - we’ll often make two versions, a healthy and unhealthy version for those who want it. There’s no reason that something already sweet needs a bunch of sugar and marshmallows added to it.

Rolls and stuffing should be skipped or kept to a minimum. Rolls are one of my favorites, but I almost always skip them. A single roll often has 400+ calories in it alone. Cut the roll in half if you must though. Stuffing is simply bread and a few vegetables. Tastes really good, but there’s no real nutritional value to it when there are so many other choices. I usually add a small scoop of it and move on to other foods.

All of the above foods are often just the appetizer though for dessert - pie is probably the real diet killer in the room. Sugar laced goodness that has tasty fillings. It’s pretty hard to skip one of these when you have them. While a single slice of pie isn’t the end of the world, it’s when you go for multiple slices that you simply destroy your diet. I could eat four slices of pie in a single sitting without issue - that will often run you in the 1600-2000 calorie range. Yikes.

Limit your pie consumption to a single slice. A slice of pumpkin pie runs around 300 calories, and the other pies go up from there to 500+ calories for a single slice. I love pecan pie, but 500 calories in a slice of pie is absolutely insane as one slice simply isn’t enough. Eat plenty of the main course and keep your pie eating to a minimum - it will go a long way in helping to save your diet.

The key things to remember at Thanksgiving dinner: focus on the healthy items - salad, vegetables, and turkey/meat. Make them the centerpiece of your meal. Eat smaller portions of other sides that are served (or skip them if you want). 1 slice of pie maximum - if you want more then go back for more salad or turkey instead.

Remember, Thanksgiving is only a single day. It won’t completely destroy your diet if you eat over your calorie goal by 1000 or 2000 calories in a single day. It’s not a single day that makes or breaks your diet, it’s the consistent eating in range every day.

Enjoy time with your family and those you love. Enjoy a tasty meal, and get back to your diet the day after Thanksgiving.