Make Each Holiday a One-Day Feast

If I had a dime for every time someone told me they packed on a few pounds over the holidays, I would be posting the rest of my blogs for 2008 from Hawaii. Unfortunately no one has been paying me for those comments.

On a serious note, many, if not most people, eat significantly worse through the holiday season. That means the typical New Year's Resolution is not only to improve upon one's usual physique but to also make up for the damage done from all the celebrations. At that point, the hopeful individual has a huge hole to dig him or herself out of, as opposed to just making a few changes.

Lets look at this in more detail: if the nutrition falloff starts with Thanksgiving and carries through to New Year's Day, that's about five weeks, or 10% of the whole year! This isn't like falling off the wagon for a weekend. You can't just make up for it by eating no carbs or very few calories for a few days. To avoid starting this terrible downward slide, here's my Thanksgiving Holiday Advice:

1. Keep Thanksgiving as a One Day Holiday: go to town on anything your heart desires this Thursday. Have stuffing, corn, turkey, pumpkin pie, apple pie, vanilla ice cream, a second plate of dinner, and those chocolate after-dinner mints. When you wake up the next day, Thanksgiving will be over and you should eat accordingly! Feel free to have leftovers of turkey (with little to no gravy), ham (and any other meats), peas, broccoli, and salad, but leave all of the other dishes alone.

2. Make It Impossible to Eat Those High Carb Killers: if you go out to eat and can't finish your meal, only take home low carb foods (turkey, ham, vegetables, etc). If you host, give all of your stuffing, mashed potatoes, that weird cranberry dish, gravy, and every other high carb item to your guests to take home. If you go to someone's house and they offer you food to take with you, opt for the turkey and vegetables and kindly refuse anything else.

This Thursday could be the start of a very bad time for your body and health...or, it can be nothing more than one day where you ate some great food and enjoyed the company of others. Let me know what I can do to help.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones!