Thanksgiving is a great time of year. Friends and family get together and enjoy the holiday season with food, food and more food. But if you’re trying to lose weight and stick to a diet, then the thought of being surrounded by roast turkey and rich calorie-filled meals can make staying on your diet plan so much harder.
We’ve all felt like giving up a diet when winter rolls round and the weather gets colder. We tend to stay inside more to avoid the cold weather. We bundle up with blankets and hot chocolate and watch movies. But Thanksgiving makes it even more difficult to stick to your goals, because of the wide selection of foods that are delicious but extremely high in fat and carbs.
At the start of a new year, it seems easy to begin a diet and even easier to stick to it through the summer when the weather is good and salads are everywhere, plus you're extra motivated to show off a "beach body". But as you creep towards the end of the year and the winter comes along, so do events like Thanksgiving. So does "food season".
READ Gluten-Free Thanksgiving Recipes
Whether it is the butter basted turkey, bacon wrapped sausages or pie with heaps of cream and ice cream, it seems like every Thanksgiving meal is packed full of fatty (and incredibly tasty!) food. A Thanksgiving meal can seem like a marathon of eating and drinking and if you are visiting friends and family it can feel impolite to turn down food or only eat small portions.
While you can avoid the food, there are also different ways of cooking that can help you cut the calories — if, of course, you're the one in charge of preparing the meal. Try to avoid using butter on your turkey and baste it in extra virgin olive oil instead. If you’re able to convince the rest of your guests, get a low calorie dessert and serve it with crème fraiche or low fat yogurt instead of heavy cream and ice cream.
READ Top 10 Healthiest Recipes for Thanksgiving Dinner
As everyone around you seems to be cooking huge dinners and the supermarkets are full of tempting treats and chocolate it is all too easy to give in. The television is full of adverts for huge home cooked meals and there seem to be deals everywhere for junk food. Presents are also a source of bad, non diet friendly food. Before the day, to stick to your diet successfully, make it clear to friends and family you don’t want chocolates or food-based treats and you won’t feel like you have to eat them. If you're scared they'll feel like you're rejecting the foods they spent so long preparing, politely explain that you've really been trying to lose weight.
Sticking to your diet at Thanksgiving means you’ll also be prepared for everything Christmas throws at you. If you can make it through a holiday based around eating and drinking without slipping up, you will be able to resist any temptations that come your way!
Here I’ve put together some great tips to help you keep on the diet all the way through Thanksgiving that also easily apply to Christmas or anything other holiday that involves massive feasts of delicious foods.
So How Do You Stay on Your Diet This Thanksgiving?
1. Control Your Portion Size
It can be a nightmare trying to keep track of what you have eaten on Thanksgiving. When you’re given an empty plate and told to help yourself to trays and trays of food, the temptation is there to just give in and load it high! Try to be sensible though and you will stick to your diet plan. Fill your plate with a sensible portion all in one go, rather than eating in bits and pieces from the bowls or platters. This way, you can monitor what you are eating accurately and make sure you don’t overdo it. If you are looking around the table with envy, you can make your plate look loaded by adding more vegetables and less carbs or meat. But just be careful the vegetables are not covered in butter!
READ Ten Vegetarian Thanksgiving Dishes
2. Go Easy on the Alcohol
I know, I know this is an unpopular suggestion but there are so many empty calories in alcohol. A pint of standard strength beer has nearly the same number of calories as six chicken nuggets! And it will take you 15 minutes of cycling to burn off just one pint. So all that booze will soon add up - even if you only have a few glasses.
Try to stick to one or two glasses of wine or beer and in between get some healthy, but still good tasting alternatives. Fizzy flavored water is a great option for people who are dieting, as they are sugar free and have almost zero calories while still being very festive. While it won’t get you drunk, it will taste better than plain water or squash and trick your brain into thinking you’re still drinking alcohol even when you’re not.
If you really can’t avoid having a drink, then look at some low calorie and low sugar alternatives.
READ Diabetic Recipes for Thanksgiving Dinner
Surprisingly, a glass of prosecco is better for you than a glass of wine – although it still has quite a lot of sugar.
A small glass of red wine only has 75 calories and if you’re a fan of cocktails just ask for a mojito with no sugar syrup, replace it with a sprinkle of brown sugar instead. Gin and tonic or Bacardi and (diet) coke are also great options if you want to drink but still watch your waistline.
3. Eat Slowly
It really isn’t a myth, if you eat more slowly you feel full quicker. Give your stomach time to react to the food hitting it and pay attention to how (and how fast) you eat. If you find your Thanksgiving plate is clean before the rest of the table and you still feel like you could eat more, this is a classic sign you’re eating too fast. It will be hard, but force yourself to physically put down your knife and fork every three or four bites.
Eating slowly means your stomach has time to register the meal hitting it and you will feel full quicker so you won’t overeat.
And besides, with lots of catching up to do with your friends and family there should be plenty of distractions to slow your eating down!
READ 12 Steps To Recession-Proof Your Thanksgiving
4. Spend Time with Family and Friends
Instead of sitting around watching the TV with a huge bowl of snacks balanced on the coffee table, break up your Thanksgiving with some games and activities. Not only will the activities distract you from feeling peckish, the quality family time is much better than watching the same old movies on TV again.
Break out the Monopoly, charades or card games to keep everyone entertained and your cravings for sweet treats at bay! If you're disciplined enough, offering to help out in the kitchen will burn some calories, too.
READ How to Detox After Your Thanksgiving Feast
5. Don’t Worry if You Slip Up
Diets are difficult and no one will stick to their diet 100 percent of the time. If you’ve been following your diet strictly but you have a slice of cake or an extra helping of turkey on Thanksgiving, it won’t be a complete catastrophe. It is how you deal with those slip ups and setbacks that determine whether you will ultimately achieve your weight loss goal.
If you do wake up the day after Thanksgiving feeling like you overindulged, get your running shoes on and get straight back to it, rather than feeling like you're a failure because you had one large feast. The longer you leave it and allow yourself treats the harder it will be to get back to the diet plan. So if you slip up, don’t beat yourself up but get back to it the very next day!
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