Curious: do you track on Thanksgiving (or any holiday)?

2

Replies

  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
    My body still tracks, so I still track. Albeit generally a bit more loosely, and not paying so much attention to staying within my allowance :)
  • Sharon_C
    Sharon_C Posts: 2,132 Member
    I've been doing this long enough that I can eyeball and estimate. In the past I would take moderate portions of the foods I liked, leave the foods that I didn't care for, and only eat one serving of whatever I chose. It worked for me. I've never gained over the holidays.

    Also, during the week leading up to Thanksgiving I'm being very tight with my calories and not overeating so I have some wiggle room come Thursday.

    Friday I will be back to my normal eating habits.
  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,223 Member
    I always log but it does bother me to do so without my scale. My in-laws think I'm weird enough as it is.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    No logging for me during Christmas or any holiday time, never did, even when losing. I stop eating when I'm full. (in maintenance over 6 years), it seems I can do moderation well. :smile:
  • JaxxieKat
    JaxxieKat Posts: 427 Member
    I'm eating about 100 calories less my usual this week, exercising, and will go over on Thanksgiving, but will track as best I can.
  • gewel321
    gewel321 Posts: 718 Member
    I will log. I recently ate a Thanksgiving meal (my family makes a full turkey spread for all kinds of occasions). I have it saved in my meal diary. I eyeballed it during the last one and had to guesstimate on the food as I didn't input all the recipes but I figured it would give me a good idea as to where I am. I am going to try to weigh my food this time and get a more accurate count but we will see how it goes!

    Logging something is better than nothing for me.
  • Ilovecookies2001
    Ilovecookies2001 Posts: 7 Member
    Since I'm cooking this year, I'm going to do my best guess and log it all before I eat that morning. (I pretty much know how much I'll eat since I'm cooking) and just enjoy the rest of the day. I normally don't though when I'm eating at someone else's place. I also don't for short vacations, my birthday and a couple of other special occasions either. I usually go over on special occasions because of drinks & desserts but that's ok because they don't happen too often.
  • COGypsy
    COGypsy Posts: 1,354 Member
    I don’t plan to track, but don’t really go overboard either. It’s just dinner with the price jacked because of the number on the calendar....
  • Katmary71
    Katmary71 Posts: 7,094 Member
    You all have me thinking of tracking on Thursday, especially since my weight is up this week! I was going to just enjoy it but have been debating on what's really worth splurging and what's not. So much for going in with abandon! Dessert is worth it though, it had better be good as I've been waiting 2 months for it!
  • GummiMundi
    GummiMundi Posts: 396 Member
    I log everyday, whether it's a holiday, birthday, or just a day when for some reason I eat more than usual. That way I'll know if I went overboard with my calories or not, and by how much.
    Of course, I'll have to guesstimate the food that I didn't cook, but that's no different from guesstimating whenever I eat out. Still better than not logging it at all.
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,179 Member
    I don't expect to accurately log this year's U.S. Thanksgiving meal. I did, once, and found that my 'plate' is a reasonable meal.
  • MichelleWithMoxie
    MichelleWithMoxie Posts: 1,817 Member
    Typically, no. But I’m not doing Thanksgiving this year, so it’ll just be a normal Thursday for me.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    edited November 2019
    NovusDies wrote: »
    Katmary71 wrote: »
    You all have me thinking of tracking on Thursday, especially since my weight is up this week! I was going to just enjoy it but have been debating on what's really worth splurging and what's not. So much for going in with abandon! Dessert is worth it though, it had better be good as I've been waiting 2 months for it!

    Logging and eating as much as you want are not mutually exclusive. I will eat way more than I need but I will enter something in my log so that later when I go to crunch my numbers I do not have a major gap. If I eat 2000 calories worth and only log 1750 I am off by 250. If I log nothing I am off by 2000.

    And in contrast I usually don't eat a particularly huge amount at Thanksgiving and when I was losing I did try to stay around maintenance that day, which isn't so hard -- turkey is low cal, there are lots of vegetables (although they usually have more fat added than my normal vegetables), and with mashed potatoes it's all about the serving size. Yes, I'd have a piece of pie with ice cream, but I only have a light breakfast and then the big meal.

    I didn't log (when I was logging) not out of some kind of denial of the calories being consumed or because I'd feel guilty going over (I wouldn't have) but because I just find it annoying and burdensome to try to estimate things there's no way to really do accurately, and I wasn't going to weigh foods when dishing up or cooking anyway.

    I think it all comes down to goals. If you are trying to keep a running TDEE tally, I agree that estimating is better than skipping, but if you don't care about that there might be no reason to care about logging on a particular day. I mostly didn't calculate overall TDEE when I was losing, so having a gap wasn't important to me. (I mostly don't log at maintenance and when I do it's usually for a few weeks at a time.)
  • peachvine29
    peachvine29 Posts: 400 Member
    edited November 2019
    I won't, no way to know calories for sure on all of the homemade food I will be eating. I will just aim to eat reasonable portions and perhaps guesstimate my calories on my plate and try to stick around a certain amount. I am running a 5k that morning so that should help a little.

    One day out of the year is not going to make a difference in the long term, I say just enjoy the holiday and get back on track the next day (which will be hard for me, my bday is black Friday!).
  • Spencerport
    Spencerport Posts: 270 Member
    There are about a dozen days a year that I let the Fat Man off the Chain and eat like the 300lb Fat Man I once was. Thanksgiving is one of those days. However I always go to the gym Thanksgiving morning and throw down a monster workout to help with the calorie load later in the day.
  • PennyP312
    PennyP312 Posts: 161 Member
    Nope.
    I’ll log something small in the morning to keep my streak going but just going to enjoy the day and back to tracking on Friday.
    Been calorie banking all week so should be okay anyways
  • mburgess458
    mburgess458 Posts: 480 Member
    Yes, l log on Thanksgiving and other holidays but I don't hold myself to any specific calorie goal. If I'm over by 1,000 or 2,000 or whatever that's fine, I just want to know. If I don't log it's like it doesn't count... just pig-out. If I know I'm going to plug everything into my phone I will at least see how good/bad I did, there is some accountability (to myself). It means I don't eat that 2nd or 3rd piece of pie that I otherwise might.
  • Luke_rabbit
    Luke_rabbit Posts: 1,031 Member
    I had no plan to log, as I mentioned earlier. But then I thought about how I would be eating these foods as leftovers, so I'd want the calorie info for the following days. I spent part of this afternoon entering recipes for everything. It ends up being more calories than I expected! I'll still have to figure out some of the amounts since off the top of my head I'm not sure if I eat one quarter, one sixth, one eighth, etc of a recipe.
  • dewit
    dewit Posts: 1,468 Member
    I usually log and do better on the holidays than during workdays. We usually go for a family walk after lunch - it burns some of what we ate and it prevents us from continuous eating. 😁
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,093 Member
    I do track on Thanksgiving and other holidays. It's actually easier than tracking on days I go to a restaurant or going to someone's home at other times of the year, because I spend the holidays with family and we have food traditions that don't change much from year to year. Almost everything that is served is already in my food log from past years. So I just copy last year's Thanksgiving and make whatever tweaks are needed. (I estimate amounts, but because I have been tracking regularly with a food scale for over six years, my estimates are reasonably good.)
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
    edited November 2019
    I absolutely track -- I don't weigh at the meal, but I do an equal amount for leftovers the next day, and use that to adjust the Thanksgiving meal. I stick to eating at maintenance calories, and with the exception of two things -- stuffing and sweet potatoes -- I do *not* do second servings. (I run a 5K that morning, which covers a slice of pie and some whipped cream.)
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    NovusDies wrote: »
    Katmary71 wrote: »
    You all have me thinking of tracking on Thursday, especially since my weight is up this week! I was going to just enjoy it but have been debating on what's really worth splurging and what's not. So much for going in with abandon! Dessert is worth it though, it had better be good as I've been waiting 2 months for it!

    Logging and eating as much as you want are not mutually exclusive. I will eat way more than I need but I will enter something in my log so that later when I go to crunch my numbers I do not have a major gap. If I eat 2000 calories worth and only log 1750 I am off by 250. If I log nothing I am off by 2000.

    And in contrast I usually don't eat a particularly huge amount at Thanksgiving and when I was losing I did try to stay around maintenance that day, which isn't so hard -- turkey is low cal, there are lots of vegetables (although they usually have more fat added than my normal vegetables), and with mashed potatoes it's all about the serving size. Yes, I'd have a piece of pie with ice cream, but I only have a light breakfast and then the big meal.

    I didn't log (when I was logging) not out of some kind of denial of the calories being consumed or because I'd feel guilty going over (I wouldn't have) but because I just find it annoying and burdensome to try to estimate things there's no way to really do accurately, and I wasn't going to weigh foods when dishing up or cooking anyway.

    I think it all comes down to goals. If you are trying to keep a running TDEE tally, I agree that estimating is better than skipping, but if you don't care about that there might be no reason to care about logging on a particular day. I mostly didn't calculate overall TDEE when I was losing, so having a gap wasn't important to me. (I mostly don't log at maintenance and when I do it's usually for a few weeks at a time.)

    For me the goal is to keep a running analysis of where I am but it is also to put my choice out in front of me. I have already pre-logged tomorrow so I have an idea of how many calories I think it is acceptable in advance. I will probably not eat as much as I have planned.

    Of course both of us are just throwing things out there for people who haven't gone through a holiday yet to consider. There is no right or wrong. You just have to evaluate the options and then see what feels right. My personal system requires logging because it is one of my primary methods of awareness and personal responsibility. After all this time I can evaluate what I am eating pretty well without logging but I want to see it on the screen. When I see it I want to ask myself if it was worth it and what would I change next time.

    Going into tomorrow I have banked some calories and I have a big calorie burning event planned for tomorrow on top of my normal exercise.

    It is not the desserts that get me. It is the cornbread dressing. That stuff is highly caloric.
  • panda4153
    panda4153 Posts: 418 Member
    Spencerport wrote: »
    There are about a dozen days a year that I let the Fat Man off the Chain and eat like the 300lb Fat Man I once was. Thanksgiving is one of those days. However I always go to the gym Thanksgiving morning and throw down a monster workout to help with the calorie load later in the day.

    You might be my spirit animal 😂
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