Thanksgiving – Diet or Indulge
I swear if you looked at top searches over the past week you would find something involving “Thanksgiving” and “diet.”
It seems like half of the United States population decides to freak out about their diet around Thanksgiving…not the 364 other days of the year…but on Thanksgiving…the one day they should, in my opinion, indulge.
And most of the tips that you will find are absolutely ridiculous:
- Drink water so that you feel fuller and don’t eat as much. (That has never ever worked for me..I always still eat as much but just feel way fuller at the end…like I’m going to explode…)
- Use a smaller plate (I’d love to see someone ask their host for a smaller plate…)
- Make sure to eat breakfast (If you’ve ever done IF, you will be better off fasting UNTIL the meal)
- Exercise on Thanksgiving (How about you exercise the other 364 days and take Thanksgiving off. That will probably help you burn more calories in the end than going for a long walk on Thanksgiving)
- Skip the dark meat (UHM HELLO!?! The dark meat is the best part! AND not bad if you eat Primal/Paleo.)
Ok so those tips are totally bogus. People waste a perfectly good holiday meal trying to stick to their diet by following those tips.
And I even tell most of my clients that if they like Thanksgiving food, this is one day they should indulge. I tell them they need to stick to their diet until the day of and go right back on afterwards, but for that one day, that is based around food and family, they can indulge.
I just think there can be too much stress and deprivation involved in trying to stick to a diet on Thanksgiving.
But not everyone agrees with me. And while I don’t believe in dieting on Thanksgiving (I DEFINITELY count it as a cheat meal!), Mark’s Daily Apple does give some good recommendations on how to prepare a Primal Thanksgiving or how to stick to Primal if you’re not cooking.
So if you think a cheat day will derail your progress or make it hard to get back on track, maybe following good (underlining good) tips like the ones on Mark’s Daily Apple will be the way to go.
For me though there is no question about whether or not I’m dieting or indulging. I’m always going to cheat on Thanksgiving. For me, it is absolutely worth it to eat pie, gravy, cranberries cooked with sugar and stuffing (I LOVE STUFFING).
What do you think? Is it worth it to indulge? Or do you stick to your diet?
Posted on November 23, 2011, in Conventional Wisdom - How I hate you, Diet and tagged cheat day, holiday diet tips, Primal, Thanksgiving diet. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Man Bicep 
Can I just say…I love how many shout-outs IF is getting in almost-mainstream media now? 🙂 WWWOOOOO! 🙂
ANYway — personally, I don’t like Thanksgiving. Actually — I don’t like the traditional meals served at any major holiday. Even before I was a vegetarian, I always hated turkey (it tastes exactly like chicken. Someone please enlighten me. Maybe I’m missing some tastebuds?!) and I don’t like cranberry sauce…as far as Christmas and Easter go, I hate ham. Bacon? Sure. No ham though.
HOWEVER…I am always down for some apple pie 😉
I love your philosophy. I’ve been hunting around for recipes and I see the exact things you are talking about. It makes me sad because it’s like one day of feasting is not going to ruin your health. What IS going to ruin your health is a daily diet of crap coupled with a daily activity level of sitting on your butt. But I guess it’s easier to stress out over one of the few days we set aside to enjoy eating as a communal experience? IDK.
Thanks and I totally agree with your comment. Your day-to-day diet doesn’t really matter (it is your overall diet each week, each month, each year that really matters). People lose sight of that though especially around the holidays.