I'm also taking a pass on Halloween this year. We already have snow on the ground and with the pandemic, I don't anticipate many trick or treaters. I'll be in the basement watching some scary movies with popcorn, too!

For Thanksgiving, we're still figuring it out. So far, it seems like we'll be doing a bit of a remote potluck and delivering items to each others doorsteps. I always do the desserts—usually pumpkin and pecan pie—and some homemade bread rolls. That works for me. I can control what's on my plate, ship off most of the desserts I make to other homes, and leave lots of yummy leftovers for later. I'm not too worried about it, to be honest. The weight is coming off, who cares if it takes a few weeks longer because I enjoyed a the holidays with my partner and ate at or moderately over maintenance a couple of times.

We don't really do Halloween, not many kids come through. I do have a little candy set aside incase the great nieces and nephews stop by but I made sure it was something I don't like.

Thanksgiving will just be the 4 of us (hubby, son, mom and me). I plan on doing turkey, a small green bean casserole for son and hubby, fresh Brussel sprouts. I haven't figured out the sweet potato's yet as mom always has to have sweet potato casserole and hubby always wants candied yams and son doesn't like either. I myself don't need either with the diabetes so maybe a little of both and a baked one for me. Dessert will be a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie, easy on me as I don't like pumpkin and nuts bother my teeth. I really have to watch the sodium and fluid intake with the CHF so it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Mom is 80 and for her tradition is tradition so it looks like there will be several dishes made to cover her wants and my restriction. I am not too concerned with the calories as I am usually under my 1200 daily its just the sodium, carbs and cholesterol I have to watch.

My daughter is 13 and says she’s too big for trick or treating. I’ll buy her one candy bar and a stuffed animal.

I’m not buying candy for the neighborhood this year. With COVID I just don’t want to do it.

Thanksgiving I’m planning to cook everything as normal but I will exercise portion control. I’m not eating the rolls and I will go light-handed with the gravy.

I’m not planning to eat leftovers except for the turkey.

I’m still making all the pies but I will only chose one to have for myself and only one normal sized slice.

I will log everything and see how it goes. If I’m terribly over, I will just eat less calories the next few days.

My MFP has me at 1370 cal now but I’m convinced I can do it!

I don't think I'm going to worry too hard about Thanksgiving. When I first started my diet, I was freaking out about how I would handle Thanksgiving, but that was back in June.

Since then, I have lost 60 pounds (holy crap, I can't believe I've lost 60 pounds since June...). I've been dealing with not being able to log food, and guessing, for the past month because I had to come stay with my mom, who broke her knee and had to have surgery. We don't have any food scales or anything here, and I've been trying to eat healthier stuff (I still have to think of my liver, so, avoiding sugar and fatty stuff), but I'm still losing weight so I think I'm doing good.

I think I'm just gonna let myself eat what I want Thanksgiving, with some moderation and stuff. Kinda give myself a break those two days, then get back to logging everything after that. Because of Covid, we are only having a small Thanksgiving dinner, so, I'm not going to be tempted with three different days of meals like we normally do I think I can handle one!

BordeauxBee wrote: »

Wow, nice plans everyone has. Being the hermit that I am, the pandemic just alleviates the need to come up with reasons to not attend some gatherings.

I haven’t thought about menu. The group is so awesome! Everyone is planning how to eat, keep numbers in mind, diet, exercise.

Usually, I donate candy to the community Halloween party for the kids. Thanksgiving, I may do immediate family get together. May make some Mac n cheese. I will end up giving it away. Otherwise, I will end up eating off it till it’s gone.

Part of this is because this group tries to focus on what "balance" means to us as individuals. Balance means flexibility and trying to do away with all or nothing thinking. One of the first rules I came up with for myself (this time) is that I refuse to be sitting in the corner eating celery sticks during Thanksgiving. Of course that does not apply only to Thanksgiving but that was how the rule was worded in my head to establish a more lenient mindset for myself.

I am good with being the "adult" most of the time. The freedom and sheer joy I get from being my new smaller size is worth monitoring what I eat. However, I still want to let the child out on occasion with a few boundaries to keep things reasonable. I want to go on vacation and have some new food experience without fretting over calories. I want to enjoy my favorite holiday. For me, at least for now, this is my idea of proper balance. There are 365 days in a year. If I am adulting 340 of them and I keep things reasonable for 25 of them I am going to be fine. These are not cheat days or rewards. They are special occasions, holidays, vacations, and every once in awhile a just-for-fun day. This gets a little more interesting for me in the near future because I will be in maintenance so if I eat more than I need on a special occasion I have to either bank calories beforehand or just plan to have a small deficit period afterwards to net it back to zero. New stuff to learn!!

I don't do Halloween. I don't have kids, and I'm a big fuddy-duddy who just doesn't want to hand out candy, so I don't.

I hadn't really thought much about Thanksgiving, but I usually just try to exercise some moderation and enjoy the holiday. This year I'm sure I'll be at my parent's house, and it will be a traditional Thanksgiving meal. It usually ends up being more than one day of overeating out there, but my mom always makes sure to have lots of healthy foods too. So there will be lots of veggies in addition to the turkey and mashed potatoes. I associate a lot of joy with those holiday weekends and that includes the food involved. To me, it's worth loosening up for a few days and just enjoying it.

After Thanksgiving it gets more difficult, because I usually have several events that involve food. And Christmas is my favorite holiday so I always want ALL the things. But as you said, we can discuss Christmas later.

Due to Covid, we decided to not pass out candy this year. Bonus, it means no tiny candy bars for me to endlessly snack on! It wasn't really a problem last year, but lately for some reason, I've really been fully back in "eat all the things" mode. Glad I don't have that temptation in the house today!

I started in May lost 40lbs, I do have Candy fun size. I’m not going to eat the entire bag rapidly I am going to have one piece. It may take months to eat this. Thanksgiving we don’t have big plans. I’m going to eat small amounts of foods. If I eat over my calorie budget ONE DAY. I can eat normally the next day ramp my exercise up.

@rieraclaelin

homemade pumpkin pie is actually not that bad calorie-wise, especially if you substitute a unsweetened nutmilk for the canned milk (I like using cashew milk) and use a sugar alternative. Keep the whipped cream under control.

You can also cut calories down even more if you make the pumpkin pie crustless (though I love crust, so I just deal with the extra calories lol)

Pillsbury's sugar free yellow cake mix and devil's food cake mix are both very good. They also have sugar free icing to go with it and you can't really tell a difference between them and a regular cake mix. If you substitute fat free greek yogurt or sour cream for the oil, and use cool whip as your topping, you get a very good calorie savings. And the good news is that Pillsbury's mixes make full size cakes and cost a fraction of the Swerve cake mix - the Swerve cake mix may be even lower in calories, but one box costs $7 and it only makes half of a layer cake - you'd have to have 2 to get a full size cake!

I've experimented with Pecan Pie and was able to get the calorie count down very well using Swerve brown sugar, though swerve is pretty darned expensive.


So using splenda or your favorite sugar alternative in your regular desserts can really help with the calories, as well as making other tweaks, such as cutting back some on the shortening in the pie crust or using greek yogurt or sour cream in place of oil or butter, etc.


Last week, I made a butternut squash pie but forgot to put sweetener in it period - didn't realize it until I took a bite. You know, it wasn't all that bad without the sweetener; the coolwhip I put on it covered the missing sweetness of the pie. I"m half tempted to try it again with sweet potato since sweet potatoes are naturally sweet anyway, and see how much of a difference it makes. You might not need sugar or a sugar alternative at all!

My plan for Thanksgiving is to have one plate and one desert - and enjoy the heck out of them. I also plan to NOT bring home leftovers.

Well my plans for thanksgiving have been thrown into the trash. My niece has tested positive for COVID this morning. She has no symptoms but still has to quarantine for 14 days. My sister, bil, and nephew are getting tested tomorrow. We were planning on doing thanksgiving together with my parents. Sooooo I dunno what we are going to do now. I may cook a small turkey and some sides for just my family or we may just treat it as a regular day. Either way I’m not going to make a bunch of different foods and desserts.