Hello, and welcome to my blog! The purpose of my blog is to help you by providing health, nutrition and fitness tips in order to improve your daily life! The first topic I will cover is Thanksgiving! For many Americans, we celebrate this holiday by eating an enormous amount of delicious food! And who cares, it only comes one day a year, right? However, many of us are either in the middle of a diet, trying to live a healthier lifestyle, or are just very conscious about the number on the scale. No matter your situation, here are some tips to help you not overdo it on Turkey Day while still enjoying everything the day has to offer!
- Drink lots of water! Drink a glass every hour during the day. Drink a glass of water a few minutes before your meal and drink another glass with your meal. There are many reasons for this, but I believe in the KISS principle (Keep it Simple Stupid!). With the KISS principle in mind, drinking water will make you feel fuller! When you feel fuller, you will eat a little less and therefore increase your odds of not going dramatically over your daily calorie requirements.
- Make time to workout! For many people, this may sound crazy. Workout on a holiday? Yes! Why? If you do a high intensity workout for 45-60 minutes, that could burn potentially 500 calories or more! But that doesn’t mean you have to excuse yourself from the family who traveled from out of town to see you just to go lift weights, run or do HIIT training. It means just making the time before you are expected to entertain your family or travel to someone’s home for the big meal. For me personally, that means working out around 6:00 am. That gives me the time to workout for 45-60 minutes, get a good sweat going, and feel great about myself even before my kids are out of bed. When it’s all said and done, I’m cleaned up by 7:30 am and getting the bird ready to put in the oven! No harm, big fowl (in the oven)! Lol, sorry for the bad pun.
- Eat less before the big feast! I know we’ve all heard someone at the office talk about how they gained 5+ lbs from Thanksgiving dinner. However, they likely didn’t gain 5 lbs from one meal. In reality, it is the combination of a normal-sized breakfast, snacking, a cocktail or two, and perhaps even a lunch before the big meal that hurts many of us. Why? Everyone overeats during the Thanksgiving meal, plain and simple. There’s turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, apple pie (is Thursday here yet!?!?), the list goes on. Depending on how the food is prepared, most of the items previously mentioned are very calorie-dense foods. And portion-control is normally not an option for most people on this big day. Therefore, control everything prior to the meal. That means if your normal calorie requirements are 2,000 calories per day, leave most of those calories for the big feast. (If you don’t know your daily calorie requirements, just trim your normal serving sizes in half). My personal preference is to have an extended fast in the morning after I wake up. I workout, drink a lot of water, and eat a small 300-400 calorie breakfast around 10:00 am. That usually will hold me over until dinner and allow me more flexibility in how much I eat for dinner.
*Bonus tip- Beware, this tip is radical for many people or is flat out a non-negotiable for others. If you are serious about your health, limit your alcohol consumption. Here’s why- alcohol is a toxin. Once alcohol enters your body, your body will focus all its efforts on getting rid of the toxin instead of focusing on other things you want on Thanksgiving day…digesting all that food! Your metabolism will then slow down and take even longer than normal to digest all those calories. For those of us who are trying to manage our weight, slowing down the metabolism is NOT what we want. Again, I know it’s a radical thought that will be protested by many people, but depending on how serious you are about your health and/or your weight, limiting your alcohol may be something you want to consider on the big holiday.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Enjoy your family, friends, food and football! We are blessed to have food in such abundance. Enjoy the special day!
Richard Fitzgerald 