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THANKSGIVING SURVIVAL GUIDE
For those of us health conscious individuals Thanksgiving poses one of the year’s biggest threats to our waistline. The holiday tradition essentially revolves around stuffing ourselves with high carb, high fat foods that we know are bad for us, washing it down with a sinister amount of sweets and pastries, then slipping away into the year’s most epic food coma. I could tell you that it is healthier to just not partake in these holiday festivities, or to just stick with white meat and salad, but c’mon! Thanksgiving comes but once a year and you relish in the occasion. So instead I am going to tell how you can enjoy your Thanksgiving feast without doing too much damage those abs you’ve been working on.
KNOW YOUR ENEMY
It is important to understand why Thanksgiving dinner typically causes such a dramatic weight gain. The reason, or reasons, are actually quite simple. One dietary downfall of Thanksgiving is the quantity of food that we typically eat. The average person consumes roughly 4000 calories over the course of the Thanksgiving meal, nearly double what most people should be eating in an entire day. Consuming more calories than your body is burning is one of the primary metabolic scenarios that lead to fat storage.
The next problem with Thanksgiving is that all of the traditional dishes (with exception of the bird itself) are high in simple carbohydrates, saturated fat, or both. Simple carbohydrates cause a rapid rise in blood sugar ultimately leading to fat storage. Saturated fats are the types of fat that we store and are they much more likely to end up on your midsection than healthy, unsaturated fats. So, in summary, the average Thanksgiving meal consists of huge quantities of food that literally signal our bodies to store fat, and also provide our bodies with fat to store. Add a little booze in there and you have got yourself the perfect storm for storing fat.
POWER UP!
Now that we know what it is about. Thanksgiving dinner that causes us to store fat, we can start to formulate a plan for preventing that fat storage. The first, and most powerful, thing that you can do to prevent fat storage is to do a really tough workout right before your big Thanksgiving feast. After an intense workout, the body requires a lot of calories to properly recover. So, if you are able to get a good workout in before your Thanksgiving meal, a lot of those calories are going to go towards recovering from that workout instead of going straight to your belly.
It is important to note that a 30 minute jog or bike ride is not going to cut it here. You need an intense workout that stimulates muscle recovery and greatly increases metabolic rate. That means you need to do something that pushes your intensity near, or to, its limits. A strenuous basketball game, some sprint intervals, a good H.I.R.T. session, or, my personal favorite, a total body strength training routine. You want to do something that is going to challenge your body and require a lot of calories for recovery. Perform your activity as close to your Thanksgiving meal as you can because energy demand is highest in the hours immediately following your workout.
CHOOSE WISELY
Now that you’ve powered up it is time to start thinking about the food itself. Thanksgiving actually has the makings of a very healthy meal: sweet potatoes, potatoes, and veggies are all very healthy complex carbohydrates and turkey is a great lean protein source. Unfortunately we add gobs of butter, sugar, flour, bread, and other not so healthy ingredients to enhance food that would otherwise be less than amazing. This is where those simple carbohydrates and saturated fats that lead to fat storage get thrown into the mix. Ultimately the more you can choose healthy whole foods over fattening processed foods, the healthier your meal will be and the less fat you will store. Keep that in mind as you make your food choices throughout the day. More of the turkey, fruits and veggies, less of the sweets, crackers, breads and other fattening foods. You do not necessarily need to deprive yourself of anything, just make sure that most of the space in your stomach is occupied by the healthier foods.
If you are preparing a dish choose a recipe that minimizes the amount of unhealthy ingredients and maximizes the amount of healthy ingredients. A typical dish at my Family’s Thanksgiving table used to be canned sweet potatoes (packed in syrup which adds sugar), baked with butter and brown sugar, and topped with a layer of marshmallows. That recipe takes a very healthy ingredient and turns it into a sugary fat bomb. Not good. Sweet potatoes are naturally sweet and do not need all that extra crap to taste good. Start with fresh sweet potatoes, nix the marshmallow topping, and go easy on the butter and sugar. Use herbs and spices like cinnamon and nutmeg to add another layer of flavor without adding more calories. This is just one example, but you get the idea. The more healthy whole foods you consume and the less unhealthy processed foods, the healthier your Thanksgiving meal will be.
DON’T GORGE
This should go without saying but do not eat yourself sick. Remember that one of the main reasons the body stores fat is because of excessive caloric consumption. Eat until you’re full. Eat until you’re really full. But don’t eat until you can’t move or breath right.
WALK IT OFF
You just finished your meal and now you are starting to feel that warm fuzzy feeling washing over you. Fight the urge to sit around and do nothing by going for a nice brisk walk. After the meal your blood sugar is going to be through the roof. When blood sugar levels are high the body is usually storing fat. Going for a walk will help to lower your blood sugar levels by using that sugar to power your walk. You can also have some coffee or tea to increase the effectiveness of your walk, not to mention give you a little extra motivation.
YOU BOOZE, YOU LOSE
One final thing before I wrap up. Limit your alcohol consumption, or better yet, avoid it all together. Alcohol is full of empty calories and it has multiple negative effects on the body. Worst of all, your body cannot metabolize fats and sugars effectively while alcohol is in the system. If you drink, it is going to be that much more difficult for your body to burn through all of the calories you just consumed, which will result in even greater fat storage. Thanksgiving dinner is hard enough to contend with on its own, don’t make things worse by adding alcohol into the mix.
If you can follow the tips discussed in this article you should be able savor your Thanksgiving favorites without agonizing over a belly full of regret. Plan ahead, make good food choices, and above all, enjoy the holiday.