Everyone knows Thanksgiving can undo a diet. So how do you make sure there isn't more of you around the middle to be thankful for after the holiday?One obvious possibility is exercise. Nutrition experts advise working out on the days before and after Thanksgiving, and, if possible, on the holiday itself. Taking a walk before or after dinner can help shed pounds. Maybe play a little touch football before sitting down to watch the game.
In my experience, Thanksgiving is absolutely the day where everybody should be exercising. Everyone should at least go for a big walk after Thanksgiving dinner. It's not optional on Thanksgiving!
On the food side, health-conscious hosts may avoid serving fatty dishes, but you can't control that if you're a guest at someone else's house.
You can take at least one step before the food arrives, when you are offered drinks: Get your enjoyment from the food and keep that alcohol to a minimum! Spend your calories on those dishes that you may not see again until next Thanksgiving.
Here are some specifics that we’ve learned over the years and want to pass on to you…
Turkey
The turkey is the centerpiece of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, and while it certainly isn't the unhealthiest item on the menu, it does its fair share of damage to dieters.
While the first turkey decision many Thanksgiving diners face is white meat or dark meat, both can be part of a healthier meal.
First, let’s dispel a myth - It doesn’t make that much of a difference if you have light or dark meat. There's just a little bit more fat in dark meat. Some people avoid that and only eat white turkey meat, which I really don't understand. The difference is minimal, so people should select their meat based on taste. You should take off the skin, because the majority of fat is in the skin.
Preparation counts too, since adding butter or certain gravies to the turkey will raise its fat content, no matter what type of meat you're eating. Calorie-wise, most of the turkey meat is going to be lean enough that the concern shouldn't be there, it should be with the gravy that you might smother it with or the sides that are really packed with calories.
A serving of turkey is four ounces, so four to six ounces may be a wise limit, but turkey is probably not the biggest concern at the Thanksgiving table. I think it's better if you're indulging, even overindulging, to have a bit too much turkey than too much mashed potatoes or anything else.
Stuffing
Often going from the turkey's insides to ours, stuffing may be the number one culprit behind holiday weight gain.
Stuffing can be so unhealthy that Keith-Thomas Ayoob, an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, once devoted an entire magazine column to discussing its potential downsides.
"There's also no better name for this dish," he wrote. "First, it stuffs the bird, then it stuffs our bellies, then it stuffs our thighs. A culinary trifecta if there ever was one."
"Stuffing is often the most calorically expensive side dish you'd ever imagine," Ayoob wrote. He said fattier versions can contain up to 500 calories per serving.
He included a number of suggestions for a healthier stuffing, including leaving out the meat, using chicken stock (adding it slowly) instead of fat, putting small amounts of butter on the surface of the stuffing before cooking, using regular bread in place of corn bread, and adding vegetables like celery, onions, apples or pears to the dish.
Oh, and don’t actually stuff it into the turkey! It's leaner if cooked separately and it won’t be potentially loaded with Salmonella or other germs.
And one of his suggestions, for those who cannot do without stuffing and can't control how it's made, is to treat stuffing like dessert, since it has the calories of one.
"Save the best for last," wrote Ayoob. "Before you dive into that single portion of tasty but calorie-laden stuffing, hit the turkey breast and veggies first."
Potatoes
Whether sweet, mashed or baked, potatoes are a fixture at virtually every Thanksgiving dinner, but some varieties are far better for losing weight or keeping it off than others.
Remember, when you eat a potato, you're actually getting more sugar, more glucose, than if you ate table sugar.
The reason is that table sugar, or sucrose, is roughly half fructose and half glucose, while potatoes have a much higher concentration of glucose, which goes directly into the bloodstream when ingested.
Take it easy on the portions-- large amounts will increase blood sugar a lot. Don’t have a lot of potatoes!
When it comes to mashed potatoes, what I would suggest is to use the Yukon Gold potatoes and use fat-free buttermilk. They're very light and airy and offer fewer calories than traditional or instant potatoes.
Vegetables
Vegetables are always recommended as a healthy part of a balanced diet, but that doesn't mean that any dish with vegetables is a healthy one.
Dishes that include vegetables can also include heavy amounts of cream or butter for flavoring, adding copious amounts of fat to the vitamins and minerals. When one does that, either with canned soups or too much cream or butter, you're defeating the benefit that the vegetable has to your body.
Remember, a lot of our traditional vegitable recipes came about in the 1950s, 1940s, when we had a lot of canned food and didn't know what we know now about foods.
Vegetables can, of course, be part of the plan for a nutritional Thanksgiving meal, as can any healthy option you can make yourself.
In 2004, Molly Kimball, a sports and exercise nutritionist at the Ochsner Clinic Foundation in Harahan, La., recommended that if you want a diet-friendly Thanksgiving meal, you "offer to bring a healthy dish such as a salad or vegetable, so that you know you're guaranteed to have at least one healthy option available to you."
Diekman said that ideally, two thirds of the plate should be filled with vegetables and whole grains -- which can be provided by the stuffing if it is made right -- with the other third devoted to meats and sauces. Following that rule of thumb, she said, keeps the plate -- and, therefore, the meal -- balanced.
Cranberry Sauce
Cranberry sauce is another fixture on the Thanksgiving table, so it might be reassuring to know it has some health benefits.
The sauce, however, can be laden with too much sugar -- though cranberries do need some. Cranberries themselves are very tart; generally, you need some sugar in the cranberry sauce. I don't think that's so bad a thing, and you can always use a sugar substitute too.
Pumpkin Pie
Some of the desserts served on Thanksgiving can be found year-round, but pumpkin pie is a fall tradition.
Fortunately, it also presents less of a challenge nutrition-wise than other desserts.
If you love the pumpkin pie, either take a small wedge or consider just eating the filling. The crust is where you get a lot of your calories.
You could do far worse than pumpkin pie. In fact, back in 2006, it seemed almost as if the agriculture department had Thanksgiving in mind when it set its guidelines, since the pie falls in line so well with allowances for discretionary calories.
Desserts
Pumpkin pie may be the most recognizable Thanksgiving dessert, but people are forgiving when it comes to adding variety to the end of the meal.
Brownies and pecan and apple pies are also familiar Thanksgiving desserts, and most people can typically find room for dessert, even if their explanation of where they found that space doesn't mesh with medical science.
Unfortunately, not all desserts can be as calorie-friendly as pumpkin pie. Probably the biggest challenge for a most people is the dessert piece of the meal. For example, calories can't be avoided in pecan, cream and mince-meat pies by simply not eating the crust.
But rising to the challenge doesn't necessarily mean skipping dessert since, after all, it is Thanksgiving!
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