Happy Thanksgiving! A time for humble thankfulness, but for some it is the great overindulging, spending time with people who may make you want to stuff your feelings with food and alcohol holiday!
Thanksgiving is a happy time, but it can also be stressful.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, we will have lots of laughs, but at times I want to strangle them especially when they start nagging or what we now call “Fitness Shaming” about my lack of pigging out on all the goodies at the table like they are. Just like anyone else, it would be easy for me to just start eating a lot of junk and possibly drink too much alcohol to stuff those feelings or appease those around me during this holiday.
Here are 6 tips I have developed to stay fit at Thanksgiving!
1. Start off the day with exercise!
This is the only day of the year I wake up and slip right into my jogging shoes and head out the door before my eyes are even open! Gotta get my metabolism up, burn some calories and get my head on straight before facing all that food and not to mention the uncomfortable interaction with some relatives that I normally would choose to avoid. (I’m sure some of them feel the same way about me too! ; )
2. Don’t graze and eat unconsciously!
Don’t graze, and don’t stand in front of food when talking to people before or after the feast.
It’s too easy to eat handfuls of Chex mix, chips or anything that gets dipped in ranch dressing, or fattening dip when chatting and just hanging out. So find another place to converse that doesn’t have little bowls of junk conveniently placed for snacking right in front of you.
3. Put everything you are going to eat on one plate!
That means no seconds! Whatever you are going to eat goes on one plate, and that includes dessert! So even if you are planning to overindulge, then put it all on one plate and make yourself realize that you are going to eat all of that! Most of the time that will stop you from going way too overboard, but even if it doesn’t, at least you are consciously doing it rather than if you keep going back.
4. Eat again – even if you don’t want to!
Three hours after you had your big thanksgiving meal you need to eat again!
That’s right, no matter how much you overindulged three hours ago, you need to make yourself eat again. That doesn’t mean a slice of pie! You already had your chance to put it on the first plate. Now it’s time for some white meat and some vegetables only. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but you do need to eat it. Your job is to keep your metabolism up and not take in a lot of fat or carbs!
5. Go get some exercise!
If you didn’t start off your day with some exercise then now is the time, and you better get after it! If you did exercise this morning, you can still do this. Take a brisk walk or go for a jog and burn some of those calories you took in!
6. How to handle those pushy family members
If you are harassed such as I am by certain family members (no names) regarding the modest amounts of foods you are taking in or that you aren’t loading up on a lot of junk, then very nicely I will tell them that “I am watching my height!” It’s usually good for a laugh and they get the picture. If they continue pushing me to eat things I don’t want to eat or attempt to pressure me into filling myself up with the same junk they are taking in and trying to make themselves feel better by getting me to do it too, then I find that people leave me alone when I ask them this simple question “Are you trying to kill me?”
Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving to All from your crew at Shape Plus!
