The best thing that I did for Thanksgiving dinner was to limit the number of side dishes and desserts. By having only a few choices, I didn’t get overly full by trying a “little” of everything. The second best thing was cooking a smaller portion of everything so as not to have left overs.
What worked for me? I had nothing to do with it, but it worked!
This Thanksgiving it was just me and my Mom and a widowed friend of hers. We went out for Thanksgiving dinner to a nice restaurant that had a special holiday buffet. The food was fabulous, but our reservation was towards the end of their serving time and by the time we had finished our meal, they were closing up!
And that meant that they had already put away all of the desserts!
Oh well. That’s the way it goes sometimes. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunity to eat delicious sweet things over the next few weeks, so I wasn’t very worried about it.
(1) being busy in the morning - I helped out with a local road race - lots of lifting and walking - and fun!
(2) having a plan for after dinner - I didn’t run the race in the morning, so I did four miles after dinner with some friends.
The morning workout insured I was hungry and looking forward to dinner and the plan for after insured I didn’t eat too much because I wanted to feel good for the run.
Limited the side dishes and deserts. I also spent 90 minutes in my parents swimming pool with my dive equipment. Not quite a workout, but at least it was something. I neither gained nor lost weight. So I consider it a win!
I took one small spoonfull of 2 or 3 sides and limited myself to two pieces of turkey. By having small serving sizes I just satisfied my hunger and still had room for a little bit of the goodies afterwards. I limited myself to one helping from the goody table. Then after that I played on the floor with my nephew and my daugher and we played hard. So, I burned lots of calories having fun playing. The next morning I weighed in at 193 lbs. That is good for me because the day before I was at 195 lbs. Also I stayed away from the snacks and appetizers totally. I had fun being social and playing. Also I asked myself “How do I want to feel”, the answer was “Great” so I did all I could to just get a nice taste of the Thanksgiving meal without ruining my diet. Many thanks to Scott for all the great encouragement and ideas to make this a great Thanksgiving. With all the encouragement from the podcasts and from here I know the rest of the holidays will be great as well.
Great topic! I too worked out in the morning and I didn’t have seconds, but most importantly I didn’t let myself stress about it. Had I allowed myself the stress of how I would handle Thanksgiving food, I would have likely eaten 3 servings of everything to stuff my anxiety. I have a long history of stuffing my anxiety. I now religiously ask myself “how do I want to feel” and “how bad do I want it” and it has helped me to stay focused and not stressed
I limited the sides that I ate. Of course this year it was just the 4 of us so that wasn’t hard. I also reduced the sugar in the sweet potato pie and found that I liked it much better that way. I also used the tart shells instead of making a whole pie. Doing it that way made it easier for me to have portion control.
That’s a great tip about baking the pie in tart shells! I have also reduced the sugar in my pumpkin pie. My recipe calls for 3/4 c. and I use 1/3c. I also like it better. I think that I taste the pumpkin more and not just sugar.
I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunity to eat delicious sweet things over the next few weeks, so I wasn’t very worried about it.
