6 Tips To Reduce Your Calorie Consumption This Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time of the year where people usually indulge with food and drink. It isn’t uncommon to drink, snack, and eat a full days worth of calories in a small 3-4 hour window. This is usually followed by a food coma nap. But hey, what’s better than friends, family, food, and naps? I can’t think of too much.

So what can you do to minimize some of the caloric excess at Thanksgiving, whether that’s with your friends, family, extended family (in-law’s), or maybe all three – either on separate days, or as a combined occasion?

Prior to the meal:

1. Accept that you will eat more calories

Okay well maybe that’s not going to be a tip to help you reduce it, but this train of thought is important to help instill long-term healthy habits. Accept that this day, or weekend, will likely be a caloric surplus and structure your goals around that. This can be done a few ways. The more common way I would suggest is to use this day(s) as a diet break and reframe the day as a caloric maintenance day, or a more realistic approach a 10-15% caloric surplus. Then, let this outcome reframe your expectations for the week and understand the trade-offs. You may lose less weight that week, or no weight at all, but you enjoyed yourself, enjoyed some great tasting food, and you can get back on track the following day. Just understand the principle of moderation here and don’t let the flood gates open with this approach.

Another approach, my personal favorite, is to think of the extra calories as extra fuel for great workouts the following day and week.

2. Stick to veggies For appetizers

Before eating the main course, try to stick to healthier snack options – like veggies. Skip the fatty cheese appetizers and dips. People tend to graze during thanksgiving, or any holiday really, and that tends to make up a good portion of their calorie excess.

During the meal:

3. Stay hydrated

Much of your hunger is dictated by your brain, one way is your brain receives signals from stretch receptors in response to volume changes in your stomach. When your stomach has been stretched sufficiently your brain will give you a signal that you are full. So, use this to your advantage and fill up on calorie-less fluids like water before and during your meal to help you consume less food, and therefore less calories.

Speaking of hydration…

4. Watch your alcohol intake

Alcohol has calories – yeah I know, uncool. Unfortunately, these calories can add up over the course of the evening; they don’t do much in the way of making you full. Use some of these tips, but know that less is more when it comes to alcohol. If you’re drinking spirits (hard alcohol mixed with something), instead of using pop use water, soda water (club soda) or even the diet variation for mix instead – diet pop won’t kill you.

5.  Chat it up and enjoy your meal

Last time I checked thanksgiving isn’t about who can eat the fastest and then go take a nap, but if you’re family does that then I’m pretty jealous. Instead, take your time and talk to your family – thanksgiving is a great time to reconnect with family, especially if your busy lives have kept you apart. Why am I saying this in terms of a calorie reduction tip? It takes about 15-20 minutes for the volume stretch response mentioned in point #3 to kick in; this is often why when you eat too quick you feel over-full after because you bypassed this feedback pathway and now feel too full. So take your time to enjoy your food, and chat with family, and this will help you consume less calories.

6. Have a piece of pie

In my opinion no thanksgiving meal is complete without a piece of pie. That being said, as mentioned in point 1, this is where moderation is important. 1 piece is fine, but you probably don’t need 2 or more; have a slice and enjoy every bit of it.

The above tips are not an extensive list of points to consider, but in my opinion some of the more important ones. Hopefully they give you some tools to apply this thanksgiving and allow you to enjoy your thanksgiving this weekend; these tips can be applied to pretty much any holiday, or social event for that matter.

Till next time,

-Mike