I'm Not Eating Healthy on Thanksgiving!

Let me start today’s blog off by saying: I am not going to tell you to “eat healthy and eat less food at Thanksgiving.” In actuality, there are a lot of healthy options available at our Thanksgiving meal. Many lean meats, and vegetables are available. However, many casseroles and vegetables may be full of sugar and fat. Nonetheless, most of our problem on Thanksgiving is not the actual food, but how much of it we eat. We most often overeat during our Thanksgiving meal and don’t know how to push the plate away when we are full. Most of us will not be able to do it. Most of us see the holidays as our days to splurge. The allure of all the great looking, smelling, and tasting food is just too much for many of us to handle. And who wants to think about portion sizes, holding the salt or butter, or eating on smaller plates during this time(this goes against all I said on Monday’s blog, however, this is just for one day J)? So what is my advice to you on being healthy at Thanksgiving dinner? It is simple. Exercise it off before and after you eat it. The day before, the day of, and the day after Thanksgiving should be major workout days. Before you tune out, hear me out…

On Thanksgiving day, just for the Thanksgiving meal, you will more than likely eat anywhere from 2000-3000 calories. That does not include breakfast, snacks, or any other meals you might eat that day. If you don’t believe you could possibly eat that many calories at one meal, let’s do some math to add it up:

Food	Calories
1 ½ med slice of turkey	66 calories
½ cup cornbread dressing	180-200 calories
¼ cup of gravy for dressing	80-90 calories
1 med slice of ham	66 calories
Close to 1 cup of macaroni and cheese	250-320 calories
½ cup Cranberry sauce	105 calories
½ cup greens	40 calories
½ cup sweet potato casserole	200-250 calories
½ cup green beans and carrots	30 calories
½ cup Mashed potatoes and  ¼ cup gravy	140 calories
2 dinner rolls with butter	175-220 calories
1 cup of Something to drink (tea, fruit punch, or soda)	80-200 calories
1 slice of sweet potato pie	250-450 calories
1 slice of pumpkin pie	200-310  calories
1 slice of german chocolate cake	270-320 calories
Total Calories:	2132-2807 calories

(Calories are approximate averages and could be much more depending on how you cook, season, and prepare your food.)

What is reflected is one serving of each food. If you don’t eat all of this at one setting, take out what you don’t eat. But please remember, we often get more than one serving of WHAT WE DO EAT, so account for that too by multiplying what you do eat by 2-4, depending on how many servings you get. That is still a lot of food for one meal. If at all possible, don’t eat all of this food at one setting. Try to eat it throughout the day. Even still, that may be too many calories in even one day for a majority of us as most of us need a lot less than 2000 calories for the whole day.

So what is our goal on Thanksgiving when it comes to being healthy? Our goal is not to gain extra weight and feel like a glutton. At least, that is my goal. The best way to do this without abstaining from what we want to eat is to burn many more calories the day before, the day of, and the day after Thanksgiving. The point is to put your body at a calorie deficit before you eat so that it can be more fulfilled when you do eat that larger meal. My aim is to burn an extra 1500-2000 calories over the 3 days. Today, I plan to walk 30 minutes, and to do one of the Insanity DVD workouts. In the morning, I am doing the 4 mile Turkey Trot here in Little Rock, AR. I will probably also walk 30 minutes sometime tomorrow also. And on Friday, I will be doing an Insanity workout again, along with the 30 minute walk; and Saturday will be a 6 mile run. You may not have to do all of this. But my suggestion to you is for you to walk 30 minutes in the morning (or evening if you prefer) today, tomorrow, and Friday; and do a 1 hour vigorous workout each of those days. That should help you burn at least 1500-2000 calories.  A vigorous workout includes: running, jogging, power walking with weights, cycling, spin class, taebo, cardio-kickboxing, plyometrics, Insanity DVD, P90X DVD, dancing, and Zumba. If I didn’t mention something that you are able to do vigorously, just include it. The point is to just get moving, and do it vigorously! I promise you that if you make this sacrifice, the food will be worth it when you eat it on Thanksgiving, and you won’t feel as much guilt afterward….Happy Thanksgiving!!!

-Jenelle Robinson