Thanksgiving Buffets Dish Out Stress

You won’t find mashed potatoes loaded with butter, cranberry sauce and gravy on any lists for healthy meals. Yet that’s exactly what many of us will put on our plates this Thanksgiving.

It’s a stressful time for anyone trying to lose weight. The entire Thanksgiving celebration revolves around a buffet of food loaded with fat and calories. Extra helpings are usually encouraged with a smile.

And the eating has just begun.

Leftovers come out of the fridge on Friday for another round.

By the time the weekend rolls around, you might feel more than a little roll spilling over your jeans.

If you haven’t figured out how to handle this situation, do it now. Remember, what works for someone else in your family may not work for you.

Look at your eating habits last year. Did you gobble everything you wanted, whenever you wanted it? Did you think to yourself: “It’s Thanksgiving. It’s my right to have apple pie and pumpkin pie. It doesn’t matter that I need to lose weight.”

What happened after that?

If you can indulge on Thanksgiving and say no to the leftovers come Friday, I think it’s OK to say yes to the pumpkin pie this holiday. But if you found yourself wanting pie every day after Thanksgiving until the pie pan was empty, I’m going to encourage you to stick to your regular healthy eating habits. Try a baked apple instead with nothing but cinnamon on it.

You see, some of us can handle a little indulgence here and there. Others are better off simply staying out of the kitchen.

It doesn’t mean you can’t have a great Thanksgiving either. It does, however, require us to think about Thanksgiving a little differently.

Ideally, the day is about appreciating each other and the positive things in our lives. Maintaining a healthy weight should be a part of that, too.

Alice Warchol is a freelance health writer and fitness instructor.

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