Thanksgiving

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darcibean
darcibean Posts: 86
in Recipes
We all know Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, and we are having family come up for the Holiday. My question is, does anyone know of a website for good, low calorie recipes for the normal Thanksgiving foods? I want to make this Thanksgiving as healthy as possible, but still tasty.
What are you planning on doing for the Holiday or making?

Replies

  • svgarcia
    svgarcia Posts: 592 Member
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    oooooh yes would love to know also!
  • sunnyk8
    sunnyk8 Posts: 125 Member
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    I have a plan. I am going to limit myself to ONE serving. I normally get lots and lots of helpings, but since I have to log it I am going to have one, portion controlled serving of everything I want.

    Unfortunately at my boyfriend's family's Thanksgiving, which is where I will be, they ALSO do appetizers before the meal. SERIOUSLY? Appetizers? BEFORE Thanksgiving? So unnecessary, but if I can find anything even remotely healthy, I might try and snack on those to fill me up a bit.

    They also apparently have 15-20 different desserts/pies... which is going to be the most tempting. But I am going to go through, decide which dessert looks the best, and have a small helping.

    AND, I plan on going for a run in the morning to give me some bonus calories.

    It's all about willpower. But at the end of the day, it IS Thanksgiving and I do want to enjoy myself.
  • iamstaceywood
    iamstaceywood Posts: 383 Member
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    Well now, I've been thinking about this alot in the last few weeks. Thanksgiving is the holiday I host. I have decided to be super strict for the time before and immediately following the holiday in the spirit of eating with wreckless abandon for one day. I would love to change up the fare a bit but, I have a reputation for making very specific family heirloom dishes and I cna't skimp on the butter. I will however be using the recipe analyzer and keeping a detailed food diary. I will also do my best to make my deficit for the week work out. I am thinking lots and lots of running and some HIIT and counter push ups and wall sits while stuff cooks. We are frying one turkey and cajun dry rubbing and roasting another and making stuffing with sausage and butter and turnip and carrots, with butter, and brown sugar. And creamed onions. I'll probably poop for a week! I am very nervous about it but, also looking forward to seeing how high I can get my burn to compensate. I'll be wearing my bodybugg like its a religion!
  • RobertsMommy
    RobertsMommy Posts: 22 Member
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    I have found some wonderful Holiday recipes including Thanksgiving on Cookinglight.com.
    They are a magazine and their website is amazing basically the have all this lightend recipes
    and cooking tips. Tons and tons of recipes. I love this website.
  • Julesaf
    Julesaf Posts: 36
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    I won't be making anything light. I honestly never eat more than 1 serving on Thanksgiving. I love the holiday, don't get me wrong, but eating more than 1 serving after cooking all day just doesn't appeal to me. I may eat 2 pieces of pie though. That in itself is about half my daily allotment of calories, darnit. I just don't see the point of making something light when the point of the day is delicious food! Every other day, I make things light, but not on Thanksgiving. it's the one day of the year I don't think about calories.

    However, I'm going to try and eat lighter that week than normal to try to offset the day. But that won't be easy with guests in my house all week!
  • SJSchwartz
    SJSchwartz Posts: 131
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    I like allrecipes.com They don't just have healthy recipes though, so make sure you check out the calories for each recipe first.

    Here's a few suggestions if you'd like...


    For dinner rolls - make whole wheat dinner rolls.

    For green bean casserolle - instead of cream of mushroom soup, you could use lowfat sour cream, mushrooms, & low fat mozzerella cheese, with a little chicken boullion, and real onions.

    For Sweet Potatoes - You could make the savory kind, instead of the sweet marshmellowy kind.

    For mashed potatoes - If you use sour cream to make them, use the lowfat kind. Don't add as much butter. Maybe use a butter flavored salt instead of adding regular salt?

    For the gravy - Don't know :) Just enjoy it.

    For the cranberry sauce - Just use less sugar in it and have it more tangy than really sweet. Or make with splenda or some other sugar substitute.

    For the turkey - slice it up ahead of time, putting all the meat on a big serving platter, and discard the skin. Also roasting it will obviously be more healthy than frying it.

    For the pumpkin pie - Use splenda or some other sugar substitute to make it. And use light cool whip on top.
  • arewethereyet
    arewethereyet Posts: 18,702 Member
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    I found it was a good time to practice my portion control. That first year it was hard. I had been on MFP since June and had lost about 15 pounds. At my age, and metabolism, the weight doesn't come off easy. It sure goes back on fast though!!

    So for Thanksgiving all my kids were coming, plus a couple extra. No WAY I was skimping on cooking. I realized it was not that bad. I mean think about it, other than desert ( and my stuffing...........drool) I ate these foods all the time and lost weight.

    I made 3 fresh veggies, used the low sodium chicken broth to cook the veggies and even as the fat for my mashed potatoes! I put real butter out for those who wanted it. I made rolls, bought some whole wheat ones, but ate the stuffing as my bread. Because I LOVE my stuffing :laugh: Don't care of anyone else does, I do :laugh:

    I made my plate up with the veggies first, then the turkey, by the time I got to the stuffing there was hardly any room :cry:

    For me Holidays are for us to enjoy family and friends. Eat like you normally do! I actally had comments from others stating it was the first year they were not over stuffed and feeling sleepy on Turkey day. They said they followed what I did and used portion control!

    Enjoy and congratulations on your loss thus far:flowerforyou:

    PS...booze is a killer on holidays. Make sure you have plenty of water!
  • BridgetteFLA
    BridgetteFLA Posts: 20
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    Cooking Light always has good Holiday recipes. I get the magazine but you can get a lot on the web too!


    http://www.cookinglight.com/entertaining/holidays-occasions/ultimate-holiday-cookbook-recipes-00400000030287/

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