How To Keep Your Thanksgiving Healthy

How To Keep Your Thanksgiving Healthy

The Thanksgiving we celebrate these days seems like it all about celebrating food –  from the huge baked turkey with heavy stuffing cooked in the juices of the bird (which I might add is the result of shopping for hours and hours to be able to find a bird that is bigger than what your friend had last year on her table), the sweet potatoes made even sweeter with the help of marshmallow and in some cases adorned with heavy cream, the cranberry sauce that has been cooked for ages with loads of sweetening agents and last but not the least, the heavenly pecan pie to top it all off in the end.

This is a picture of an average Thanksgiving dinner these days; whereas Thanksgiving should be more of a celebration of health, wealth, family and the various bounties of nature. But if you are reading this, then it means that all hope is not lost and there is still time to make a turn towards the right direction.

The first thing that one needs to realize is that eating lots of food is nowhere near eating healthy, especially at one of the Thanksgiving meals which can easily provide you above 2000 calories. Instead it is the healthier choices that are going to ensure a healthy life and a healthy lifestyle for you.

There are numerous healthy choices that you can make around the time of Thanksgiving whether you are hosting the party yourself or are invited to a Thanksgiving meal somewhere.

  • The number one rule to avoiding unhealthy choices on Thanksgiving is following your normal eating and workout routine. Most mothers forget to eat a proper breakfast because of the Thanksgiving meal preparations and looking after their kids and this compels them to dive into food at night.

Avoid doing that to yourself; find time to eat a proper healthy breakfast and then indulge in a fruit snack during the day or before the meal so that you don’t feel as if there is a lot of empty space to be filled in inside.

More tips to keep your Thanksgiving Healthy

 

  • If you are having a party at your home, then you can do a lot to make the meal healthy. For instance, switch all dairy ingredients to its lighter, non-fat version and use Greek yogurt instead of plain when making dips.

 

  • For the side-dishes make a large serving of baked or grilled seasonal vegetables instead of fried savoury items and fruit pies instead of pecan pies. Around the time of thanksgiving, there are a lot of fresh, colourful vegetables that you can find in the market. Make use of those to produce a dish of baked vegetables with just a hint of salt, olive oil and thyme. Even if you are going to a friend’s house, volunteer to bring a side-dish.

 

  • When preparing the meal yourself, opt for the organic items in the market. They might cost a bit more than their regular alternatives, but then what are we earning for, if we cannot put healthy food inside our body?

 

  • When sitting down for the meal, the idea is not to fill up your plate but to introduce food to it proportionately. Almost half of it should be coloured vegetables and fruits, with one-fourth meat portion and one-fourth carbohydrates.

3 thoughts on “How To Keep Your Thanksgiving Healthy”

  1. This is SO hard for me to do! I swear I use an entire pound of butter in our Thanksgiving day meal! Thanks for all the tips…I will try harder this year!

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