Thanksgiving Dinner - What’s the plan for those other meals?

RunningMaven57

Hello Everyone,

Wondering what others are doing to plan their food intake tomorrow around the Thanksgiving dinner? Are you planning on fasting, eating something light, or doing something different altogether?

Our dinner won’t be until late afternoon/early evening, so I’m planning to have a mid morning protein shake to help ward off the temptation to snack before. Interested in what others are planning.

Thank you for sharing!

dklieman

I’m focusing on portion control. A TASTE of everything but not full servings or gobs. Also try to tune into my body and STOP when I’m full.

AnnPT77

I'm soloing again this year, for pandemic reasons, planning some moderate indulgences, more in the realm of not worrying about my nutritional goals for one day than piling in calories.

I've done a variety of things on holidays, in the 6+ years I've been on MFP (year of loss, rest maintenance). At this point, I guess I feel like one day is a drop in the ocean, as long as I'm sticking to a reasonable routine the overwhelming majority of the time. Even if I push it, eat to maximum current capacity, experience suggests it's going to top out around 5,000-6,000 calories or so, which is maybe 2-3x my TDEE, so even in theory only about a pound-ish of fat regain . . . and in practice, it's never been quite as much regain from a single rare high-calorie day as the math might suggest. (Yes, I do eat that much sometimes, but only a few days a year - rare.)

These days, I don't use a holiday as an excuse to stuff in as much food as possible, but just relax and enjoy the day, including enjoying some foods I don't eat very often, or eating a bit more of some things I don't get very often (such as a small slice of both apple and pumpkin pies, and family members' specialties - I usually spend holidays with my SIL/BIL when we're not in a pandemic, and SIL makes these amazing cheesy potatoes with sour cream, olives . . . . 😋 . . . I eat 'em). I worried about it more at first, when losing and first maintaining. Now, I don't worry much about it at all, just relax/enjoy, then return to my normal routine after.

YMMV, of course.

If I'm having a big meal, I do usually eat lighter in the beginning of the day, though. Not sure if that's saving room for the good stuff, or managing calories. Maybe both? 😉

Thanksgiving specifically, I usually also start with around 40 minutes on the rowing machine, good for maybe 300ish calories - US Thanksgiving is the first day of the Concept 2 Holiday Challenge, where people have a goal of machine rowing 200km between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, and the Concept 2 company donates to charity based on how many meters are rowed. For me, the Challenge is a good way to shift from my good-weather workout routine into something indoors that's more doable in snowy, cold weather.

If one has time, even just bundling up and fitting in a nice walk can be a good addition to the day, weather permitting.

ETA: Any extra-food day can cause a substantial jump on the scale next day, but mostly water weight and extra digestive contents. It tends to dissipate over the following week, IME.

tmbg1

I'm just eating whatever I want with the family today. We did prime rib 😋